


doubles or nothing

by alovelylilt



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Tennis, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Freeform, Humor, Mixed doubles, Rivals to Lovers, idk if i would call this a slowburn but it's not instant either lol, this do be inspired by some twitter things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23250883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alovelylilt/pseuds/alovelylilt
Summary: Ricky Bowen is at the top of his career with a World No. 1 title already under his belt, and he doesn't plan on losing anytime soon. Still, there's something missing in his playing, and he can't figure out what it is. His long-time rival and fellow World No. 1 player, Nini Salazar-Roberts, is equally lost in figuring out why she's been feeling so dull every time she steps onto a tennis court lately. Of course, that all changes when they're forced to play mixed doubles together... but hey, love means nothing in tennis.———Ricky smirks. “Yeah, you said I’d have to take you out first.”Nini wrinkles her nose. “Like with a sniper or something?”He throws her a withering look. “Like on a date, Nini. Remember those? When was the last time you went on a date, anyways?”She turns her nose up at him in that familiar, haughty way of hers. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Relationships: Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Comments: 120
Kudos: 213





	1. love-all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *in tennis scoring, "love" indicates a score of zero— thus, "love means nothing in tennis." "love-all" is the score at the beginning of each game, before the players have begun playing.
> 
> uhhhh i haven't written anything creative since i started college three years ago so this might suck but! so be it. hope everyone is doing as well as they can, given the circumstances!! anyways here are some important disclaimers:  
> -@jbcssett has an account on twitter where she posts ideas/summaries for a rini aus, and i saw the one she posted called cross-court: "tennis au where ricky and nini hate each other but have to learn to work together to play for mixed doubles"  
> -that reminded me of an idea i had for a mixed doubles oneshot for 5sosff years ago (rip to 5sosff; that was a good time) and i was newly inspired to write again!  
> -but anyways, let's give credit where credit is due— i haven't actually had a twitter account since middle school (when i was in the austin & ally fandom... yeah) so i wasn't able to DM @jbcssett about using her rini au idea! if she sees this— i hope this is okay!!  
> -again, i don't actually have twitter but i do lurk on there reading all the rini aus— y'all are so good at this shit and i almost considered downloading social dummy to do it myself but honestly i am too lazy for that  
> -also i think i saw that someone on twitter had started a similar mixed doubles rini social media au; her twitter is @livrodrigoo and the au is called love-love! (i think it’s also based off of @jbcssett’s tweet?)
> 
> notes for the story:  
> -aged-up characters; everyone is in their early twenties  
> -don't come for me if some of the tennis stuff is wrong; i trained for tennis and played all throughout high school but that was three years ago and i lit rally have not picked up a racket since then so i am: rusty, to say the least. plus i honestly don't know that much about professional tennis (i used to follow along pretty closely, but again, it's been a couple years lmao)  
> -i chose florida as the location mainly just bc i know a lot of tennis pros and other professional athletes train there lmao but i'm not from there so if i get something wrong about florida just...... suspend ur disbelief

_Thwack. Thwack. Thwack._

Cross-court forehand, down the line, backhand. 

The machine which had been feeding tennis balls to Nini whirs to a halt, now empty. She wipes the sweat off her brow with the back of her hand, panting hard. She’d already had a training session earlier today with Jenn, but it had gone so poorly that Nini needed to take her frustration out on the ball machine. Briefly, she considers filling it up for another round, but the ache in her muscles advises her against that. 

“Figures you’d be here, Neens. First one in, last one out, huh?” Gina’s voice bounces off the walls of the indoor court, warm and teasing. 

Nini turns around, a faint smile on her lips. “You’re one to talk.”

Gina shrugs, pointing behind her. “He’s still here, so I don’t really have a choice.”

EJ pops up behind her shoulder, grinning at Nini. “What’s up, little lady?” He’s possibly the only person in the world with enough foolish charm to be able to call Nini “little lady.” That, and the fact that he’s called her by that affectionate nickname since high school, gets him off the hook. 

Nini starts packing up her stuff as she chats with the mixed doubles pair, telling them about her horrible training session earlier that day. “... really, I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately, but I’m just feeling so _off_ , y’know?”

Gina nods sympathetically. “Just one of those days?”

Nini smiles unconvincingly. “I hope so.” 

EJ slings an arm around her shoulder, ignoring her complaints about his sweat. “Oh, shut up, you’re just as sweaty. And y’know, if you’ve been feeling weird, maybe you should get a massage or something. Gina and I went to the most amazing couples masseuse the other week—”

“Oh, ew, I really don’t need to hear about that.” Nini scrunches her nose in disgust. 

“C’mon.” Gina rolls her eyes. “You know we’re not like that.” 

“Please, she wishes!” EJ exclaims. 

Gina retorts with some petty insult, and Nini just laughs as her friends continue bickering, her bad mood fading away. Nini’s 23 now, and she’s been playing tennis for as long as she can remember. She’s good— _really_ good. She’s goddamn World No. 1. She’s been doing this long enough to know that the bad days come and go, that’s for sure, but there’s something different about the way she’s been feeling recently— heavy, like her feet are anchored to the ground every time she steps onto a court. So unlike what the sports media like to call her: _Sparrow_. 

“... so how about that mixed doubles slot for Wimbledon, little lady?” 

Nini is pulled out of her thoughts by EJ’s cajoling voice, nagging at her for the hundredth time about something she has no desire to do. “You know how I feel about mixed doubles. In fact, you’ve literally felt it,” she says, raising her eyebrows at him. They both wince at the memory of the one time they played mixed doubles back in high school, before Gina had moved to Salt Lake City. Nini and EJ were great as friends— his goofiness balanced out her type-A personality, and her sensibility grounded his flights of fancy— but _terrible_ as partners. 

Gina laughs, patting EJ on the shoulder. “Pity the girls who had to deal with you before me.”

EJ shrugs, amicable as always. “True. But anyways, Nini, this could be good for you! Maybe it’ll get you out of your funk!”

Nini grimaces. “I highly doubt that.”

“You never know, Nini, you might just find yourself enjoying it. It could get the fire back in your eyes, or something.” Gina gestures vaguely at Nini, who just sighs. Nini knows Gina knows her better than to believe that it was just a bad day. Hell, it’s been a bad couple of _months_. She knows it, Gina and EJ know it, Jenn for _sure_ knows it, and even Kourtney had picked up on it from their FaceTime calls. 

“Yeah, maybe. I’ll think about it, I promise. Really!” Nini nods emphatically. 

“Sure, Neens. You know better than anyone else that you’re going to need to be in better shape for Wimbledon,” says Gina, not unkindly— just truthfully, as a fellow elite player whose eyes have been attuned to weaknesses her whole career. 

EJ chimes in, too. “Yeah, I heard there’s some upstart 17-year-old girl who’s vying for a win against you at Wimbledon this year.”

Nini smiles wryly. “There always is. I was that girl once, too, y’know.”

“Oh, come on, you’re 25, not a _fossil_!” Gina throws her hands up in the air. “That’s it, I’m tired of your mopey ass. We’re going out tomorrow night. Drinks on me!”

* * *

On the other side of town, Ricky Bowen sinks into his couch, exhausted but content after a long day of training. He’s about to put on the next episode of whatever mindless reality TV show he can find when his phone buzzes repeatedly, indicating an incoming FaceTime call from Big Red. 

“Ricky, hey, sorry to interrupt your reality TV time.” Big Red’s face pops up on screen, too close to the camera, as per usual. 

Ricky waves him off. “Nah, that’s alright. What’s up?”

“Well, you know that mixed doubles slot at Wimbledon I’ve been telling you about?”

Ricky nods, uncertain where this is going. Wimbledon is still many months away, and his mind is focused on the next episode of _Keeping Up With the Kardashians,_ not his upcoming competitions. He’s always been that way— laidback (some would say lackadaisical), easygoing, and just generally unperturbed. While he may dominate on the court (World No. 1, _thank you very much_ ), he never gets too caught up in the competitiveness of it all. He just wants to play tennis, man, not stress about other people. 

“Anyways, Ben was telling me that you might be playing in it!” exclaims Big Red. 

Ricky sits upright at that. “What? Mazzara told you before he told me?”

Big Red _tsks_ at him. “Ben told me he told you earlier today. Did you forget already? Ricky, I swear…”

Ricky tunes out Big Red’s complaints about his goldfish-like memory; it’s true, he’d probably been daydreaming or something when Mazzara told him. (All things aside, Ricky has always found it weird how his best friend and his coach are on a first-name basis, but he supposes that’s what happens when your best friend is the most sought-after sports commentator in their field. _Ricky_ doesn’t even call Mazzara by his first name, but that’s more because it just feels wrong.)

“... and do you know who you’re playing with yet?” At some point, Big Red had circled back to the mixed doubles slot. 

Ricky shakes his head. “I’m sure Mazzara will figure that out. Besides, you know I can play with anyone, Red. Now that you mention it, mixed doubles sounds kind of fun. Get out of my comfort zone and all that, right?” Big Red, Mazzara, all his friends, and even his _parents_ had always been on him to stop coasting along— shocking, considering the lack of attention his parents paid him. Of course, Ricky works hard— he’s worked unbelievably hard to get where he is today, but he’s only ever worked hard _enough_. There’s no denying that his easygoing nature has lent itself to a certain devil-may-care attitude. He’s naturally gifted at his sport and he works hard enough for it, so he’s blown past the competition all these years, leaving him comfortable in his position atop the field. 

“If nothing else, your mixed doubles match will at least make for good television.” Big Red chuckles, thinking back to Ricky’s one and only disastrous time playing mixed doubles back in middle school. 

Ricky scowls, knowing exactly what Big Red is thinking about. “ _Hey_ , that was only because I was playing with _her_ , you know that. Besides, I’ve played doubles before! How hard can mixed be?”

Big Red smirked. “Famous last words, Bowen.”

* * *

The next morning, Nini wakes up sore _everywhere_. She’d definitely gone too hard with the ball machine last night. She gets out of bed and spends the next thirty minutes stretching and meditating. She’s in the middle of drinking her morning cup of iced lemon water when she finally checks her phone to see 10 messages from Jenn, which is strange because it’s her day off. Most of the messages are emojis and exclamation points, but one sentence catches her eye and makes her blood run cold. She calls Jenn without a second thought. 

“Nini, sweetie, it’s 7am, and it’s the weekend. Can you please give the rest of us mere mortals a chance to sleep in?” Jenn’s words are sharp, but her tone carries no heat. She’s been coaching Nini since the girl could walk, and she’s practically her third mom. 

“Jenn, _please_ do not tell me that you put me in that mixed doubles slot with _Richard Bowen_ , of all people!” Nini’s voice is shrill, but she can’t help it. Her and Ricky have a… rivalry, of sorts. Sports media eats it up every time her and Ricky are in a room together; _the Prince and his Sparrow_ , they murmur. There’s something to be said about how she’s always _his_ Sparrow; it’s not like she wants him to be _her_ Prince, but it’d be nice if sports media could tone down its blatant misogyny every once in a while. Only Big Red is a decent enough human being to give her and Ricky’s relationship a different moniker— he always refers to their showdowns as “Rini Rematches”, although she’s not sure if that’s any better than _the Prince and his Sparrow_. Anyways, she really does not like _Richard Bowen_ , and Jenn knows as much, so what the hell is up with this mixed doubles thing?

“I thought I might be able to slip that past you, but I should’ve known better, huh?” When Nini doesn’t answer, Jenn sighs. “C’mon, Nini, trust me. It’s just what you need! I know you’ve been out of sorts lately, and this could be a great way to redirect some of your energy!”

“My energy is fine right where it is! I don’t want to _redirect my energy_ towards _Richard Bowen_!”

Jenn _tuts_ at her. “Really, Nini, do you have to say his name like that every time? You’ve known each other since you were kids!”

“Yes, and I’ve hated him the whole time.” Nini sniffs haughtily. 

“What, you can’t handle a little competition?” Jenn taunts her, knowing that it’ll rile her up and get her right where Jenn wants her. Nini likes to play the part of the angst-ridden, complex athlete, but Jenn can see right through her. She knows the rivalry between Nini and Ricky is childish and dumb; what’s more, she knows that this partnership could be really good for Nini. 

“Um, excuse me! Of course I can! I can handle anything you throw at me, Jenn!” Nini is irate and indignant all at once, her voice rising even higher. 

Jenn grins. “So that’s a yes to the mixed doubles?”

“What? No, that’s not a yes, that’s not what I said— Jenn? Hello? Jenn? Helloooooo?” Nini pulls her phone away from her ear, staring in disbelief at the screen. Too late does she realize that she’d been played and Jenn had hung up on her. _Damn, she’s good_ , Nini thinks to herself, rueful and resigned. 

* * *

Meanwhile, Ricky lies asleep in his king-sized bed, limbs thrown every which way. His deep sleep is broken by his phone buzzing incessantly on his bedside table. With great reluctance, he grabs his phone and answers it, not bothering to open his eyes. “Whassup?” he mumbles, voice garbled by his pillows. 

The voice on the other end is the last one he would expect to hear. “What the fuck is up indeed, _Richard._ ” There’s only one person who calls him Richard, and she only does it to spite him. 

Ricky sits up in bed, yawning and passing a hand through his hair. Unbidden, a smirk comes to his lips at the idea of _Nina Salazar-Roberts_ calling him up on a Saturday morning. Will wonders never cease, honestly. “Do my ears deceive me, or is that Nina Salazar-Roberts?” he drawls, making sure to draw out the syllables of her name extra long, in that way he knows she hates. 

“Shut the fuck up, _Richard,_ and _keep_ shutting the fuck up for the next few months, okay? I’m your mixed doubles partner, we’re playing at Wimbledon, and you better not make us lose. See you on Monday for training.” 

The line goes dead before he has the chance to respond, not that he’d even know what to say, given the bomb she’s just dropped on him. Wasn’t it just last night when he’d even registered anything about a mixed doubles match at all?

Ricky groans and flops back down into his pillows, deciding that that’s a problem for later. Unfortunately, he can already feel a headache building up at the prospect of mixed doubles with Nini. They had played once together as kids— in fact, she was the only one with whom he had ever played mixed doubles, and it had gone horribly. 

Grumbling, Ricky pulls himself out of bed. Leave it to Nini to force him to get out of bed before noon on a weekend. He hasn’t even _seen_ the girl yet, and she’s already wreaking havoc in his life. 

Accordingly, Mazzara is his first call after he drinks some coffee. “Yo, what the hell? Mixed doubles with _her_ ? Really? It had to be _her_?” Ricky whines unabashedly. 

Mazzara scoffs. “You practically grew up with Nini, Ricky, do you have to refer to her like _that_ every time?” 

“Yes! Because _she’s_ been a pain in the ass the whole time!”

“You can’t see me right now, but I want you to know that I’m rolling my eyes. Hard.”

“Mazzaraaaaaaaa!”

“Yeah, yeah. I think you need a new challenge, so here it is. Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“What? Why? What do you mean I need a new challenge? I have plenty of challenges!” Ricky protests. 

“C’mon, Ricky. When was the last time you _really_ pushed yourself for something, huh?” Mazzara’s tone is knowing. 

Ricky grimaces and stays silent, unable to come up with anything. 

“That’s what I thought. Besides, aren’t you always saying how you can play with anyone?” Now, Mazzara’s tone is insufferably smug. 

“Sure, but _she’s_ not just _anyone_!”

“Uh-huh. See you on Monday, Ricky.” 

“Fine, but I just want you to know that I’m holding you responsible for any bloodshed that occurs!”

“We’re insured. I’m going to hang up now, so if you want to complain some more, please call someone else. Bye!”

Ricky‘s phone hangs loosely in his hands as he tries to get over his shock about the whole situation. The way he had just been bamboozled into this mixed doubles thing with Nini… damn, Mazzara moves fast. 

* * *

That night, Nini is only all too happy to join her friends at the bar. The world of professional sports is small, and that world gets even smaller if you only counted people from Salt Lake City. By several strokes of luck, almost the whole gang had found themselves in Florida. Nini, EJ, and Gina had relocated first for tennis. Carlos followed soon after he found his favorite gymnastics coach and training center there, and Seb was close behind when he decided that he was only made for warm weather (never mind the fact that he spent most of his time in a frigid ice skating rink). Ashlyn had opened her own sports psychology practice in Florida just this past year. Big Red travels all the time for his job, but he recently settled down in Florida, and Nini knows Ricky also moved here for tennis not too long ago. Kourtney’s fast-growing athletic wear company required her to be in New York a lot of the time, but she was slowly making the transition to Florida, as well, to open her own factories and warehouses.

In any case, it’s rare that all of them are free at the same time, and it’s a miracle that Gina’s spontaneous invitation to get drinks had attracted so many RSVPs— even, Nini notes with irritation, Ricky. 

As she draws closer to the table where her friends are sitting, Nini lets her eyes wander across Ricky’s silhouette. The last time she saw him was a couple weeks ago at a charity tournament, where they’d exchanged barbs during a press conference, much to the amusement of the reporters. Ricky had moved to Chicago with his mom after his parents’ divorce in their junior year of high school, right around the same time Gina moved to Salt Lake City. Still, the circle of elite tennis players is extremely limited, and what with their shared friend group, it was inevitable that Ricky would always be in the periphery of Nini’s world. His recent move to Florida only further cemented his presence in Nini’s life, which has been a sore point for her. Still, she can’t deny that Florida looks good on him— he looks tanned and healthy, his arms flexing every time he gesticulates during whatever story he’s telling. 

Nini shakes herself out of these thoughts as she sits down next to Kourtney, pressing a kiss to the girl’s cheek.

“Nini! Hey girl, I’ve missed you!” Kourtney hugs her eagerly. Pulling back, she eyes her up and down before frowning at her. “Jenn’s not working you too hard, is she?”

Nini gives a noncommittal hum as her answer. She knows she doesn’t look her best— she doesn’t _feel_ her best, either. Whatever’s been weighing her down for the past few months is finally showing in her appearance, which is unfortunate because Ricky looks like he’s damn near glowing in the soft light of the bar ambience. 

See, this is part of the problem— her and Ricky have been hovering on the edge of each other’s orbits for so long, she feels like she doesn’t know how to act when she’s in direct contact with him. Even though they have all the same best friends, their group is big enough that they’d managed to maintain their rivalry and their dislike of each other while growing up together. It’s a problem because the chemistry between them is undeniably hostile, but it’s also undeniably strong. 

“Hey, partner.” Ricky turns to her with a lazy grin. 

Nini rolls her eyes, accepting the pina colada he’d ordered for her without comment. It was her favorite drink, and normally he’d make fun of her for ordering it, so maybe this was a symbolic gesture towards a truce or something. 

“Partner?” EJ questions, drawing the whole group’s attention. 

“You didn’t hear? We’re playing mixed doubles at Wimbledon,” says Nini, sardonically pumping her fist in the air. 

“Woo-hoo,” Ricky tacks on tonelessly. 

EJ guffaws, and the rest of the table joins him. “That is the best thing I’ve ever heard, oh my god!” 

Ricky leans over to punch EJ in the arm at the same time as Nini does, and she shoots him a dirty look for it. 

“So, what— you guys are going to train for mixed doubles on top of your singles training?” Gina raises an eyebrow. 

Nini shrugs, chancing a glance over at Ricky. He looks as clueless as he always does. Nini wonders what that’s like— to be so carefree, so laissez-faire with your life. Nini’s life is planned down to the hour in her bullet journal; she hopes she can check off this mixed doubles situation just like she checks off her Wimbledon win, and then return to her normal life without _Richard Bowen_ written into each day. “Jenn thinks mixed doubles will be good for me,” she says. “But my singles training obviously comes first.”

“Mine too, Ni- _na_.” Ricky butts in. He delights in the way her nose scrunches at his way of saying her name. “But _I_ can handle the double training, no problem. In fact, I can probably split my time between mixed doubles and singles and still win them both,” he boasts. Internally, he curses himself for the bombastic words, especially in front of the reigning mixed doubles pair, EJ and Gina. Ricky’s normally not a very competitive person, but something about Nini and the way she turns her nose up at everything he does makes him want to dazzle her, to prove to her that he’s worth looking at. 

Gina and EJ take no offense at Ricky’s comments; they’ve seen the Ricky-and-Nini show enough times to know how they get around each other. Still, Gina can’t resist poking a little fun at them. “Oh, really? I’d like to see you two take us on. Here, I’ll make you a bet: EJ and I will play handicapped, and if you two can get a game past us, we’ll be your hitting partners for a week.”

Ricky raises an eyebrow, intrigued. Gina and EJ are top notch players; to have them as hitting partners would push his playing further in extraordinary ways. Plus, he never usually gets to play them in singles. 

Nini, on the other hand, vehemently shakes her head. “Sorry, no deal for me. I know better than to bet against Gina and EJ, unlike _Richard_ over here.” Turning to face him, she smirks. “You’re really all brawn, no brains, huh?”

“What, you don’t think you can do it? Too scared we’ll play together and you won’t even need to step on to the court before I return all the shots?” Ricky knows his taunts have no grounds, and he feels like he’s watching a trainwreck as the words spew from his mouth. Really, he just can’t help himself around Nini— she’s always so goddamn uptight and haughty, he just wants to see her _break_ every once in a while. 

“Not all of us can have your incredibly unjustified arrogance, _Richard_. Some of us actually have to _work_ for what we have.” Nini’s tone is icy, even though her cheeks are flushed with anger.

Ricky knows he started it, but he’s mad now, too. “Oh, fuck off, you know that’s not true. I work hard, Nini, I just don’t kill myself over a fucking sports game the way you do. Sorry if I have a life outside of tennis!” 

“Um, okay guys, let’s just calm down. We’re all friends here…” Seb comes around to their side of the table and places a placating hand on Ricky and Nini each. 

“So… based on _that_ interaction, I think a doubles match between the four of us would be good for you two to let off some steam. C’mon, it’ll just be a friendly match. We can forget about the bet!” Gina exclaims.

“No, the bet is fine. I’m going to wipe the floor with you, _Richard_.” Nini seethes, crossing her arm.

“The bet isn’t between you and me, Ni- _na_.” He’s drawling again, and she hates it. Who gave him the goddamn right to speak so slow and sultry, anyway?

“I’m talking about a bet between you and me, _Richard_. Whoever gets the most shots past Gina and EJ will have to be at the beck and call of the other for a week.” 

“Fine!”

“Fine! I’m going to the bathroom. _Don’t_ sip from my drink, you little bastard.” Nini flounces away.

“I bought that drink for you, what the hell,” Ricky mutters, but she’s already gone. “I’m going to get us all shots,” he announces, leaving as well.

The rest of the table looks at each other for about two seconds before bursting into laughter. 

“Oh man, who needs to pay for live entertainment when you have Ricky and Nini,” Carlos chortles.

Gina grins. “No kidding, I usually never see Nini get so childish like that. A bet? What is this, high school?” 

Kourtney snorts. “Please, you should’ve seen them in high school. Way worse, believe it or not.”

“The prank wars, oh god…” Ashlyn shakes her read at the memories. “When Ricky moved away, it was the first time the tennis courts in SLC knew peace in years.”

“Right around that time, Nini got way more serious about everything, too,” Big Red points out. “Of course, a year and a half later, they ended up at the same training academy with you and EJ.” Big Red pats Gina on the arm. 

“I almost prefer the prank wars to whatever weird rivalry thing they have going on,” Kourtney admits. 

Nini eventually returns to the table, downing the rest of her drink in one go. “God, I needed that,” she mutters. She’s usually not a big drinker, but dealing with Ricky really makes her crave the release of alcohol. “Guys, let’s do shots!” she declares.

Ricky returns at that moment, a tray of shots in his arms. “Way ahead of you.”

She doesn’t deign to respond, merely grabbing a shot and tossing it back. Eyebrows raised, Ricky sets the tray down and does the same.

“Oh, no. Is this going to be another competition?” Gina whispers to EJ.

He shrugs helplessly. “Looks like it.” They both wince as they watch Ricky and Nini glare at each other and take another shot.

Ashlyn hands a shot to everyone at the table before motioning to Ricky and Nini, who are on their third shot. “Well… if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eek so that's it for the first chapter!! lots of exposition here. i'm trying keep this at 5 chapters, but we'll see... anyways i hope my characterization of ricky and nini (and everyone else) is coming through clearly; they both have ~issues~ that remain to be resolved by this whole mixed doubles thing, but i'm trying not to be too in-your-face about it. idk it's been so long since i've written that i feel like i've forgotten what the balance is between keeping a strong narrative vs. not holding the reader's hand through the story???? 
> 
> anyways! drop me ur thoughts below!! i'd love to hear what you guys think :))
> 
> next chapter: ej x gina vs. ricky x nini, more training, and the aftermath of the bet.


	2. rally

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *a rally is when the players keep hitting the ball back and forth, essentially (there are longer descriptions of this online but a video is the best explanation tbh)
> 
> also this chapter got way longer than i anticipated, which lit rally always happens to me but anyways! this was supposed to cover the entire week following the bet, but here we are ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Nini wakes up with a faint headache and a mouth that tastes like sandpaper. She’s in an unfamiliar bed, wearing unfamiliar clothes, and for a moment, she thinks the worst. Ricky emerges from the en-suite bathroom and her worst nightmare solidifies. 

“Did we—“ She can barely croak it out. 

Ricky looks obnoxiously chipper, running a towel through his freshly washed hair. “Hmm? Oh please, _as if_!”

All the tension in Nini’s body releases at once, and a relieved sigh expels from her lips. Now that she’s more awake, she does vaguely remember getting irresponsibly drunk last night with her friends. They had all left the bar eventually, leaving just her and Ricky, still locked in a shot-for-shot competition. Still, that doesn’t explain... “Why am I here, Ricky?”

His eyebrows shoot upward as he turns to her. “What, no _Richard_?” His teasing tone falls away at the distressed look on her face. “Whoa whoa whoa, you’re fine, Nini. You and I were the last ones at the bar last night, and I tried to call you a taxi to your place, but you wouldn’t give me the address. I took you to my place instead. You got changed yourself and you slept alone in that bed, I promise.”

Nini nods, her face relaxing. “Okay. Thank you. And I kind of remember refusing to give you my address… sorry about that.”

Ricky smirks. “Yeah, you said I’d have to take you out first.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Like with a sniper or something?”

He throws her a withering look. “Like on a _date,_ Nini. Remember those? When was the last time you went on a date, anyways?”

She turns her nose up at him in that familiar, haughty way of hers. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” 

“I’m just saying, it wouldn’t kill you to do something besides tennis once in a while.” Ricky leaves the bedroom, his voice trailing behind him. “You want breakfast or something?”

Nini glances at his bedside clock. “It’s 11:30am,” she calls out. 

“Brunch?” he yells back. 

“I guess!” 

Nini’s honestly shocked that she slept in so late; she can’t even remember the last time she’s gotten up past 8am. The Jonas Brothers tour shirt Ricky gave her to sleep in is several sizes too large, but it’s soft from many washes, and it smells nice. Nini eyes the uniform stack of her clothes at the foot of the bed; Ricky must have folded them for her. Still, there’s no amount of freakishly neat folding (seriously, had he worked at a J.Crew or something?) that can save her sweaty, alcohol-stained clothes from last night, so she decides to keep Ricky’s shirt on as she wanders out of his room and down the hallway. It’s funny— Nini’s known him almost her whole life, and she’s never seen his living space before. Granted, he’s only been in Florida for a couple months, but she had never seen his room in high school, either, or his dorm at the training academy where they, along with EJ and Gina, had spent so many of their formative years. In between the academy and Ricky’s move to Florida, he had done a couple years of training in Spain, and she hadn’t seen much of him then. But as soon as he arrived back in the United States, it was like no time had passed at all, and they had fallen back easily into their routine rivalry. 

Nini pauses as she enters the kitchen. Ricky has his back to her and a pink apron tied around his waist; he’s whistling some jazzy tune as sunlight pours in from the windows, bathing him in warmth. It’s a beautiful picture, and Nini feels something stir in her chest at the sight of it. She clears her throat, trying to rid herself of that feeling in her chest. 

Ricky turns around, grinning. “How do you like your eggs?”

“Scrambled.” Nini moves to sit on the kitchen island countertop. Everything is all warm wood and rustic accents, and she thinks it’s kind of charming; he laughs when she tells him as much. 

“Yeah, when I was a kid I used to want to live in a—“

“— cabin in the woods. I remember,” Nini murmurs softly. 

“Aw, you do? The jig is up, Nini. It’s okay, you can admit you had a crush on me.” Ricky winks at her, and she rolls her eyes. 

Nini retorts dryly, “I do remember a distinct desire to crush your windpipe quite frequently when we were kids, if that’s what you mean.”

“Ha ha, Nini, your wit is outstanding. Here are your eggs, you ungrateful wench— hey, get your ass off my countertop, that’s where people _eat_ , Nini.” Ricky motions for her to hop off, then hands her the plate of eggs. 

“Ungrateful wench? You’re feeling, what, medieval?” Nini grabs the plate, smirking. “Plus, whatever happened to Ni- _na_?”

Ricky shrugs, setting his own plate down on the countertop. “If we’re going to be partners for the next few months, _Nini_ rolls off the tongue a little nicer.”

“You sure thought so in kindergarten.” Nini sits down next to him, bumping his shoulder to let him know she’s joking. “And I guess I should go back to calling you Ricky, if we’re really going to be spending so much time together.” On instinct, Nini makes a face. “This is weird, isn’t it?”

Ricky answers with his mouth full. “What, the mixed doubles thing? I didn’t see it coming, but I dunno, maybe it could be fun.”

“No, I mean… _this_. You. Me. Spending time together, alone. Being nice to each other. You made me _eggs_.” Nini sounds astonished. 

“Contrary to what you may believe, I’m not actually a bad guy.” Ricky shoots her a wry grin. “And I’m not a bad partner, either.”

“We’ll see, I guess. We’ve got that match with Gina and EJ today, right?”

“Yep, and then training on Monday. You still on for that bet?”

“Absolutely.” Nini is silent for a few beats, then: “God, could you _please_ learn to chew with your mouth shut?”

* * *

Of course, whatever newfound peace struck between Ricky and Nini that morning during brunch doesn’t last long. The instant they step onto the court with EJ and Gina, their old habits resurface.

“Do you have to breathe so loudly?” Nini snaps, glaring at Ricky’s back.

He doesn’t even turn around. “I’m warming up, what the hell do you want from me?”

“I want you to stop breathing so loudly! It’s getting on my nerves.”

He breathes extra loudly just to irritate her. “Oops, sorry, can’t help it!”

“Are you kidding— we’re _all_ warming up, but do you hear anyone else breathing as loudly as you right now?” Nini gives in to childish impulse and throws a tennis ball at his back.

Ricky whips around, incredulous. “Did you just throw a ball at me?”

“So what if I did?” 

“Children, children, please!” EJ’s voice echoes from across the court. 

“Are you guys ready to play or not?” Gina taps her foot pointedly. Her and EJ finished warming up long before Ricky and Nini, who have taken every other minute to snipe at each other for one insignificant thing or another.

“Ready!” Nini bounces up to her feet, twirling her racket in her hands. “Try not to get in my way,” she sneers at Ricky.

“Bold of you to assume I’d _want_ to be in your way,” he mutters, grabbing his racket and tamping down the urge to poke her in the back with it. 

Gina and EJ are playing handicapped; Gina will only play on the right side of the court, and EJ will only play on the left side of the court. Plus, they’ve given Ricky and Nini the serve. However, the two rivals have yet to decide which one of them will serve.

On the baseline, they exchange quick arguments.

“You know I’m a more precise server!” exclaims Nini. She pushes Ricky towards the service line.

“Yeah, but my serves are more powerful!” Ricky resists her push and nudges her towards the service line.

“Guys? We don’t have all day. Seb and Carlos invited Gi and I to see a movie later,” EJ reminds them.

Ricky looks offended. “What? Why didn’t they invite us?”

“The two of you? Together? I think they were worried you’d argue over the movie the whole time,” Gina responds dryly. 

Ricky blows out a breath, petulant. “Whatever. Here, why don’t we flip for the serve? I call tails. Anyone got a coin?”

Nini rolls her eyes, shouldering her way past Ricky as she makes her way to the service line. “We don’t have time for that. Just serve, Ricky.”

“ _Just serve, Ricky_ ,” he imitates her under his breath, pitching his voice high. 

“I heard that, asshole.”

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Gina and EJ win the match easily. Ricky and Nini get a few shots past Gina and EJ, but Gina and EJ have each snagged World No. 1 spots in doubles, and Ricky and Nini stood no chance against their seamless teamwork from years of playing together. 

“Not bad, you guys!” EJ grins, clapping them both on the back. 

“Not bad? We barely got a game past you,” Ricky grumbles. 

“Maybe if you stopped trying to hit risky winners all the time, we could’ve done better,” Nini snaps. 

“Maybe if _you_ stopped being such a tightass, our moves wouldn’t have been so predictable and we could’ve done better!”

“Maybe if _you_ —“

“Okay, okay, you two, break it up.” Gina chuckles nervously, not wanting to endure another battle. “Who won the bet between the two of you, anyway?” Too late does she realize that her words could instigate more fighting. 

“ _Me_.” Nini couldn’t sound more smug if she tried. “Ready to be at my mercy, _Richard_?”

He sneers at her. “Oh Ni- _na,_ I love it when you talk dirty.”

EJ and Gina wisely decide to start packing up their stuff, leaving the other two to argue amongst themselves. 

“It’s true, they weren’t bad,” EJ muses. “But that’s only because they’re both World No. 1s. Their actual teamwork and strategy sucked ass.”

Gina sighs, glancing at the still-arguing pair. “No kidding. They’ve got a long way to go before they can compete at Wimbledon.”

* * *

Ricky and Nini show up to training on Monday with matching scowls. Both of their coaches are there, along with a wizened man with long, white hair pulled back into a severe topknot. 

“Ricky, Nini, glad to see you two!” Jenn chirps, beaming at them. 

Mazzara nods at them in lieu of greeting. “This is Steve.” He gestured to the white-haired man. “He’ll be your coach for mixed doubles. He’s an old friend of ours, so he’ll treat you well.”

“ _Old_ friend is right; he looks about 80,” Nini whispers to Ricky, their rivalry momentarily forgotten as they both try to gauge this strange man. 

“Honestly, I think a strong gust of wind could push him over,” Ricky agrees, whispering as well. 

“Richard, Nina, stop that whispering at once!” Steve’s voice booms loudly across the court, startling Ricky and Nini. 

“Oh, uh, that’s fine, you can call me Nini.” Nini smiles nervously, her innate urge to please overpowering her misgivings about Steve. 

Ricky adds, “And I’m just Ricky.”

Steve doesn’t acknowledge their words. “Thirty laps to start. Off you go.” They make their way to the outside of the court and prepare to start running, but Steve stops them with a raised hand. “Thirty laps _around the building_.”

Ricky and Nini gape at each other, then at him. “The building” is a huge sports complex. Ricky and Nini are far from unaccustomed to harsh physical training at the highest level, but they’re supposed to have a full day of training, and thirty laps around the building _to start_ is quite ludicrous.

“Have fun, kiddos!” Jenn kisses each of them on the cheek before exiting the court. 

Mazzara only smirks. “Better get started on those laps, you two.” He exits as well, patting them on the back as he passes by. 

“Thirty laps to start, then we’ll get into the rest of the warmup,” says Steve. He motions towards the exit. “Well? Richard, Nina? What are you waiting for? Get out there!”

* * *

Ricky and Nini end their day of training absolutely drained. They sit on the court, backs against each other as they try to catch their breaths. Steve is long gone, having tasked them with picking up every single tennis ball from that day’s training by hand before they’re allowed to leave. 

“I feel like I’m dying,” Nini declares. 

“I feel like I’ve already died,” Ricky responds. 

“I can’t remember the last time I had to pick up my own balls with a _machine_ , let alone by hand,” Nini muses. 

Ricky smiles ruefully at that. “Me neither. Those World No. 1 titles really got to our heads, huh.”

“Speak for yourself,” Nini snorts, but there’s no vitriol in her tone. Nothing like complete and utter physical exhaustion to kill the animosity between her and Ricky. She makes her way to her feet, groaning as she cracks her neck. 

Ricky scrunches his nose at the sound, getting up himself. “Ew, can you not do that? I hate that sound.”

“Better get used to it, Ricky. You’ll be hearing a lot of it this week.” Nini turns a dazzling smile on him, and he forgets how to breathe for a second (or maybe that’s just the aftermath of the grueling day of training they’d just had).

He’s knocked out of his stupor by the realization that she’s talking about the bet. Grimacing, he asks, “Okay, your highness, what do you want from me today?”

“You’re making me dinner,” she decides. 

He quirks an eyebrow at her. “Oh yeah? What do you want to eat?” 

She shrugs. “Surprise me. We’re going to have to make a stop at the grocery store, though, because I’ve got nothing in my fridge. You drove here, I assume?”

“Sure did. How’s stir fry sound to you?” 

Nini’s mouth waters at the thought of stir fry. “God, yes.”

Ricky smirks. “Careful, Nini, don’t sound so pleased. I’m going to start thinking you like having me around or something.”

“In your dreams, lover boy.”

* * *

In all the years that he’s known her, Ricky’s never seen Nini’s living space, either. Thus, it comes as a shock to find out that she lives in absolute disarray. Clothes are strewn all over the ground, half-empty mugs of tea sit on various surfaces, and Ricky almost trips over a laptop charger on his way to the kitchen. The only part of the place that even remotely resembles order is the area where Nini keeps her tennis stuff. That area is as scrupulously neat as he would expect from her, but that doesn’t explain the rest of the place.

“You live like this?” Ricky sounds wholly unimpressed.

Heat rises to Nini’s cheeks as she surreptitiously toes a pile of clothes under a coffee table. “Shut up. I’m allowed to not be perfect all the time, okay?”

Ricky holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m the first person to say amen to that, but maybe it’s time to do laundry or something?”

“Well, I use a laundry service for my tennis gear… I’ve kind of forgotten about the other stuff,” Nini admits.

“Mmhm. Can I take a shower, or is that going to be overflowing with your stuff, too?” Ricky’s tone is teasing and warm.

“Oh, shush. The guest bathroom’s that way. I’m going to take a bath, and when I’m out, I expect dinner,” Nini sing-songs, giving him another one of those dazzling smiles that knocks the breath out of his lungs. 

Too stunned by the force of her smile to come up with a response, Ricky just nods dumbly and watches as she skips her way into her room. _Damn, what the hell’s gotten into me?_

After Ricky takes his shower, he gets to work on dinner. The stir fry doesn’t take him long, but then his gaze catches on the nearest half-empty mug of tea, and he groans. It’ll bother him all night if he just leaves it like that. In quick order, he picks up all the discarded mugs and other assorted silverware and starts the dishwasher. Next, he gathers all the dirty clothes and separates them by color. His rhythm is broken momentarily when he’s unable to find her washing machine, but he wanders around for a bit and locates it, picking up shoes along the way.

When Nini emerges from her bath wrapped in the world’s biggest, fluffiest bathrobe, the scent of french lavender invades her nostrils. She follows her nose to her dining room, where Ricky has set up candles and laid out their stir fry dinner, which also smells delectable.

Nini is shocked beyond belief. “Ricky? Did you… clean the whole place?” 

He turns around from where he had been setting the table. “Hey. You look cozy.” He snickers a bit at the way she’s drowning in her bathrobe. “And yeah, I did a little bit of tidying up. I hope you don’t mind, I honestly couldn’t help myself. The mess was really bothering me. Also, I found these candles in a cupboard? Hope it’s okay that I lit them.”

“Uh… yeah, yeah, of course that’s okay. Thank you? I guess?” Nini’s still stunned at the thoughtful gestures.

Ricky shrugs. “Don’t mention it. Wanna eat?”

“Yeah, for sure. This looks amazing, Ricky, seriously. Where’d you learn to cook like this?”

“My mom and dad weren’t around that much, you know? I didn’t exactly make a ton of friends as a mid-semester junior transfer student in Chicago, and my mom stuck around even less after the move, so I picked up cooking as something to pass the time in between training and matches.”

Nini rests a hand on his shoulder. She doesn’t say a word about his parents— that’s not her apology to give, and she knows he doesn’t want her pity. She just lets her hand rest there, warm and solid.

“So… Steve,” she says. “Are we sure that’s his real name?”

Ricky laughs, handing her a pair of chopsticks and a fork. “I’m not even sure _he’s_ real. By the way, this is the only clean cutlery you have left. I put all the dirty stuff in the dishwasher.”

“Oh, please, white boy. You take the fork, I’ll take the chopsticks. And, wow, you did my dishes, too? You’re going to start making me feel bad for winning this bet,” she jokes. 

He shrugs. “I don’t mind cleaning. It’s kind of satisfying, to be honest.”

Nini giggles at the image in her head of Ricky vacuuming and dusting. “You have _got_ to get a hobby.”

“Hey, you’re one to talk. Tennis, tennis, tennis, isn’t that right?” he teases. Nini stiffens at that, remembering his words from a few days ago at the bar. Ricky picks up on it instantly, and his gaze softens. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that…”

Nini shakes her head. “No, it’s okay. I mean, you’re not entirely wrong… I hardly remember a life outside of tennis.”

“Me neither,” Ricky admits. “You know, Big Red once told me something that he’d picked up after getting to know so many elite athletes. He said, when you want to be the best at something, you have to do it at the exclusion of everything else.”

“Big Red’s a smart guy,” Nini murmurs. She’s not sure what else to say in this moment, this moment that seems suspended in time and draped in something soft.

“Um.” Ricky clears his throat, getting up from the table. “You want dessert? I bought ice cream.”

“Sounds good!” Nini sounds too chipper, and she knows it. _God, this is kinda awkward._ “Wanna watch a movie or something?”

Ricky raises an eyebrow. “Nina Salazar-Roberts, I never thought I’d see the day. Are you coming on to me?”

Nini’s eyeroll is predictable and immediate. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: in your dreams, lover boy.” Still, she can’t deny that the whole night has felt rather date-like. As she watches Ricky pick up their plates and make his way to the kitchen, she wonders what it means that she thinks she could get used to this. 

Absentmindedly, she enters the living room, turns on the TV, opens her Netflix, and picks the first nature documentary she finds. When Ricky approaches her with two bowls of ice cream, she’s already snuggled into the couch, with a blanket thrown over her legs. He hands her a bowl, then looks at the screen and wrinkles his nose in distaste. “We’re watching a documentary? C’mon, Nini, that’s gonna put me to sleep. Wanna watch some reality TV instead?”

“What, like that’s _not_ gonna put me to sleep?” she scoffs, but she also pats the space beside her and motions for him to sit down.

“Fine, we’ll compromise. Let’s watch _National Treasure_! It’s nerdy enough for you and fun enough for me,” he declares.

“Why do _you_ get to be the fun one? More like nerdy enough for me and lame enough for you,” she grumbles. Nonetheless, she finds _National Treasure_ and starts the movie. 

Regardless of how fun or nerdy or lame the movie is, the day’s training has taken an outsize toll on them. They fall asleep soon after, heads towards opposite ends of the couch and legs tangled together underneath the blanket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there you go! that's chapter 2 babyyy
> 
> up next: the rest of the week, more training, and a significant fight (just bc they made nice this chapter doesn't mean that the deeper issues underlying their animosity are resolved lmao)
> 
> as always, comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!! (seriously the comments from the first chapter were so *chef's kiss*)


	3. deuce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *deuce is the score when both players are at 40-40 (tennis scores go 0/love, 15, 30, 40). after that, a player has to win by two points in order to win the game.
> 
> bruh these chapters keep running away from me. i expect to fit in a certain amount of plot, and then i start writing in new sections out of nowhere, but that's the way it be i guess??
> 
> lmfao also remember that significant fight i talked about in the endnotes of that last chapter? yeah, it's not happening. idk i just decided that it wasn't the best way to lay out what i wanted with the characters, so i scrapped it.
> 
> other than that, please enjoy!

The next morning, Ricky and Nini both bemoan the position they fell asleep in.

Nini cracks her neck extra hard, throwing Ricky a dirty look when he opens his mouth to complain about the sound. “Don’t start, Ricky. It’s your fault we ended up sleeping on the couch last night in the first place.”

“My fault? What do you mean, it’s _my_ fault? If you put on a reality TV show like I’d asked, I wouldn’t have fallen asleep so quickly,” he points out. 

Nini rolls her eyes, but somehow it doesn’t have the same bite as it did before the night they spent together. “Whatever. We have training in, like, two hours. Do you have enough clothes or do you need to go home and change?” 

Ricky scratches his head, trying to remember what’s in his bag. “I have enough. Why? You want me to stick around or something?”

Nini beams. “Yes. Make me breakfast! Since you’re basically my personal _everything_ this week, I actually gave the week off to the chef and driver.”

“You can’t drive?” Ricky gapes at her. “Or cook?”

Nini flushes. “I dunno, the driver’s just for taking me to training and matches and stuff. Anywhere else, I just take an Uber or something… And I’ve always just eaten what the chef makes for me.” 

Ricky shakes his head. “Nah, I’m gonna teach you how to drive, Nini. It’s so nice to be able to just get in a car and drive away, anywhere, any time you like. And I’ll teach you some basic recipes, too. Don’t you want to eat what you _like_ , not just what your chef makes you according to some meal plan or whatever?”

Nini blinks at him. “I guess I’d never really thought about it that way… It’s always been easier this way, so I can focus on tennis. But I guess that sounds kinda nice, so if you want to teach me… well, I wouldn’t say no. As long as you aren’t an asshole about it,” she tacks on at the end.

“I’ll try to restrain myself,” he says dryly. “You want eggs again, or something else?”

Nini bites her lip in concentration, running through all the breakfast foods she knows in her head. “Can you do… French toast? I haven’t had it in years, but I kinda just got hit with a craving for it…” With her hair messy and her expression sheepish, Ricky can hardly deny her anything. 

“Yeah, of course. French toast it is, your highness.” He tips his chin at her, his voice deep from sleep and his tone teasing. Nini passes off the shudder that runs through her as a product of the early morning chill and tries not to let her eyes catch on the way his shirt moves across his back as he stretches.

When they arrive at training that day, Steve greets them with a long, thick strand of rope. “Richard, Nina, we will begin the doubles training today. Come, come.” 

Ricky and Nini approach him apprehensively, eyeing the length of rope. “Uh, what exactly— whoa!” Ricky exclaims, startled by Steve wrapping one end of the rope around his waist and securing it firmly. Steve wraps the other end of the rope around Nini’s waist and tightens it, then steps back to observe his work.

“Yes, this will do,” Steve decides. He walks over to the other side of the court and stands behind the ball machine. “You two need to get used to each other’s movements. You need to move as two pieces in one moving machine, and this must be a smooth, well-oiled machine. Nina, on the baseline. Richard, on the service line. You will notice that the rope does not allow you to move far without the help of your partner. That is the whole point of this exercise— you must learn to work together, as a _pair_ , not just two singles players who are coincidentally occupying the same court. We will start with this ball machine, which is currently full. For every ball you miss, you will run one lap around the building. Ready? Let’s begin.”

Ricky and Nini hardly have time to exchange incredulous looks before the ball machine starts whirring and feeding them balls. Quickly, they get into position. It starts off easy; the balls land close enough to each of them that they don’t have to move much. However, Steve soon turns up the range and speed on the machine, and that’s when the chaos begins.

Nini darts forward to return a short ball, but she’s yanked to a halt by the rope around her waist. Slightly annoyed that she missed such an easy shot, she turns around and calls out to Ricky, “Hey, you gotta move with me!” 

Ricky gives her a thumbs-up and Nini nods. The next ball comes deep, and Ricky backs up in preparation to return it. In doing so, he drags Nini back, and she stumbles and falls to the ground in surprise. “Yo, Nini! You gotta move with me, too!” he yells.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” She’s fully irritated by now. These are all easy shots, and the stupid rope between them is the only reason why she’s making all these unforced errors. 

Unfortunately, things only go downhill from there. Not only are they unable to move with each other, they also start running into each other when the ball machine starts spitting out balls right down the center of the court.

“What the hell, that was my ball!!” Nini exclaims. She rubs her elbow furiously from where Ricky’s racket had collided with it, glaring at him.

“What? No, it wasn’t! It was clearly mine!” he responds in equal measure, pressing a hand to his side where Nini’s elbow had jabbed him. 

“Richard, Nina. Perhaps you should start calling out whose ball it is? Before you both end up black and blue all over,” Steve intones, raising an unimpressed eyebrow at their disheveled appearances. 

“Fine.” Nini blows a strand of hair out of her face. The next time a ball comes down the center, she calls out, “Mine!” before going for the return. Surprisingly, this works quite well for them. However, that still leaves the problem of moving together. Ricky and Nini continually find themselves yanked short or tumbling over each other as they get tangled with the rope. 

After the tenth time one of them falls on their ass, the ball machine finally spits out its last ball. Mercifully, it’s straight down the center. 

“Mine,” Ricky calls out, returning the shot cleanly. 

Steve looks satisfied. “By my count, that was around 20 balls missed, so that will be 20 laps around the building before you leave today.” 

By the end of the day, Ricky and Nini are truly black and blue all over.

“I really think Steve is not of this earth,” Nini groans, sinking into one of the ice bath tubs in the physical therapy center of the sports complex. “Like, he’s gotta be sent from hell to torture us. I will accept no other answer.”

Ricky lets out a pained laugh from where he, too, is sitting in an ice bath across the room. “How long did Jenn and Mazzara say he’d be training us for?”

“A week. It’s supposed to be a crash course in mixed doubles, or something. Apparently he’s legendary,” Nini replies, closing her eyes as she lets the painful numbing of the ice bath envelop her. 

Ricky snorts. “I’m sure he is. Who could forget that man?”

“Y’know, he’s got a point, though. We can’t keep calling out shots forever, and we really have to fix that movement problem.” Nini opens her eyes and fixes him with a determined look. 

He groans. “Nini, please. Whatever idea you have, can’t it wait until tomorrow? When we have another day of hell scheduled?”

“Don’t you want to get better, though? To outpace whatever training schedule he has in his head for us, to prove that we can improve even faster than he expects?” Nini’s got fire in her eyes now, and she almost rises out of her ice bath with the force of her fervor. 

Ricky gives a noncommittal hum. “I guess. What’s so bad about following his schedule, though? I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”

Nini makes an exasperated sound and resists the urge to hurl a piece of ice at him. “I’m sure he does, too! But I don’t want to limit myself to just what he _expects_ , Ricky.” 

“Ugh, fine. What’s your burning idea, your highness?”

“That rope from today!”

“You mean the bane of my existence?” he mutters.

“That rope today,” she plows on. “I think we should wear it outside of training, too. Just for the rest of the week.”

Ricky laughs loudly, then pauses when he realizes she isn’t joining him. “You’re not serious? What would the purpose of that even be? You know just as well as I do that the rope is meant to be a placeholder. It’s not like we’ll actually be restricted like that. In a real match, we’d be free to move however much we wanted without the other person yanking us back.”

“Yeah, I know that, but the whole point is that you and I aren’t used to each other’s movements. We keep crashing into each other to get the same balls, or missing shots when we expect the other person to get it. The rope is a placeholder for that innate sense of knowing exactly where your partner is going to be on the court at any time. And I’m saying that if we wear that rope for the rest of the week, we can acquire that sixth sense much faster.” Nini finishes her explanation triumphantly, sending him one of those trademark dazzling smiles that he’s now realizing she saves for those moments when she’s feeling particularly pleased with herself.

“It still sounds crazy to me, but I’ll think about it,” Ricky says. Mentally, he gives himself a pat on the back for being able to even partially resist the effects of that smile.

Nini knows her idea _does_ sound pretty outlandish, so she supposes that’s the best she can get from Ricky at the moment. “Fine, fine. You going to Ashlyn’s for that dinner party?”

“Yeah. It’s potluck style, right? What are you gonna bring, if you can’t even cook?” he teases gently. 

“ _Hey_ , I’ll have you know that I am an excellent baker.”

Ricky regards her with curiosity. “Really? Where’d you pick that up?”

Nini looks somewhat embarrassed as she responds, “Terrible sweet tooth. And I never really wanted to bother the chef about it, so I learned to make my own desserts.”

“ _Aha_! So you _do_ stray from your perfect little tennis-filled life!” Ricky crows, pumping a fist in the air in mock celebration. 

“I think I’ll make a pie for tonight,” Nini muses, ignoring him.

“Ooh, can you do blueberry pie?” Ricky’s voice turns dreamy. “My mom used to make that for me when I was younger. It was just about one of the only things she ever did for me personally.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, Ricky winces. “Sorry, I don’t know where that came from. You don’t need to hear my sob story.”

The look Nini gives him is soft and sweet. She wishes she could lay a hand on his shoulder right now, but her arms are frozen stiff in the ice bath. “Don’t apologize for that. Besides, I already know your ‘sob story’, if that’s what you want to call it. You can tell it to me as many times as you’d like, and I’ll want to hear it every time.”

“Really?” He wrinkles his nose. “Why? It’s not particularly unique or uplifting. It’s not even that sad, compared to, like, the entire continuum of human suffering. Which, by the way, I think we hit the end of with Steve,” he jokes, trying to lighten the mood. 

But Nini isn’t swayed that easily. “I’ll want to hear it every time because it’s yours, Ricky. Just because we’ve been rivals who kinda dislike each other at times, that doesn’t mean you’re not important to me.”

“I’m important to you?” Ricky sounds achingly vulnerable. For all the jocular confidence and easygoing certitude he exudes, Ricky doesn’t actually think that highly of himself. Sure, he’s literally the number one male singles player in the world, but that doesn’t really translate into much. Ricky has met expectations his whole life— he’s never exceeded them. It just so happens that the ceiling on what he’s expected to do has always been higher than his opponents by just enough that he can keep winning. Mazzara has never voiced it out loud, but Ricky knows that he thinks Ricky has much more potential than what he shows on the court. 

“Yeah, of course you are.” Nini’s admission shakes Ricky out of his thoughts. “Of _course_ you are,” she repeats emphatically, as if she’s trying to prove a point. “And, Ricky… just because you haven’t suffered through the worst things life has to offer, that doesn't mean that you haven’t suffered enough.” 

“Okay, Nini,” he says quietly. The _thank you_ goes unsaid, but he hopes she can feel it reverberating in his chest. He hopes she can feel it echoing in hers. 

* * *

Ricky ends up driving Nini to the grocery store, where she picks up ingredients for blueberry pie, and he picks up enough items to fill their cart to the brim. 

At the checkout, Nini blinks at him, bemused. “Ricky? Why on earth are you buying all this stuff?” 

“I’m stocking your kitchen, Nini. It was so sad, I think you only had, like, three lemons in there. I refuse to see you live like that any longer. Besides, you’re going to need regular kitchen staples if you’re going to learn how to cook.” 

“The lemons are for my morning cup of ice lemon water,” Nini mutters, but she knows it’s a poor defense. 

Ricky throws his head back and laughs. “Of course you’d be the type of person who drinks a cup of iced lemon water in the morning. And yet, you’re also kind of a slob and you can’t cook or drive?”

“I’ve got layers, Ricky. Like an onion, if you will.” She sniffs haughtily, and he grins at the familiar motion. 

“Did you just quote _Shrek_ at me?”

“Did you just _recognize_ that I quoted _Shrek_ at you?”

He laughs again, and she tries not to linger too long on the thought that she wants to make him laugh all the time. 

Later, he drops her off at home and helps her put away all the groceries. In between stacking cartons of eggs and milk, he regards her thoughtfully. 

“Nini? Why didn’t we ever get along before?” he asks. “I mean, I know why I didn’t like _you_. But why didn’t you like _me_?”

She scoffs. “What, everyone’s just supposed to like you automatically?” 

“No, but like… what did I ever do to you to start this weird rivalry thing?”

Nini huffs, crossing her arms. “Well, if you must know, it probably started when we were kids. You were always causing trouble in those training camps, and I was annoyed that you always got away with it because you were still really good.”

“In my defense, I was just a kid and I wanted to have fun! C’mon, Nini, it was never that serious,” he cajoles.

“Maybe not to you! It was always serious to me.” Nini is silent for a while as she wonders whether she should tell Ricky the next part. “You know, my moms… They’re the best. They’re so supportive, and they’re always telling me that they’ll be proud of me no matter what. And maybe there’s something wrong with me, but I always hated that, because it felt like they didn’t believe I _could_ be the best at anything. It’s been that way my whole life, y’know? Every year, I pushed myself harder to get better, and they’d just tell me to slow down, to relax, because they didn’t want their baby girl to try so hard or reach so high.” Nini blows out a breath, shrugging. “I know I’ve been lucky, especially compared to you. My parents love me and shower me with attention. But I always felt so claustrophobic under all of that love and affection, because it felt like they thought I was too fragile for anything else. Even now, they still don’t really get it. Sure, they’re proud of me, but they always ask me why I don’t consider retiring and settling down. They don’t get that I want to make history. I want to change the game.”

“Damn.” Ricky whistles. “Y’know… just because you haven’t suffered through the worst things life has to offer, that doesn't mean that you haven’t suffered enough, Nini.” He throws her a teasing grin, then sobers. “I’m sorry I never knew about your parents. I’m sorry I didn’t ask.” 

Nini waves him off. “Nah, that’s okay. I never really talk about it much. Besides, they’re my parents, and I love them, and I’ve long since made my peace with it. Anyways, what’s up with you? Why didn’t you like me?”

“Well, after your big monologue, I’m going to feel stupid saying it,” he says sheepishly. “I just didn’t like you because you always tried to get me in trouble for goofing off during training.”

“Yeah, because you were always distracting me,” she responds, grinning. “So that’s really it, huh? Something like two decades of petty rivalry, all over the fact that you were an annoying little shit as a kid and I was a goody two-shoes?” 

He laughs. “When you put it like that, we really sound so stupid.” They’re both silent for a bit, then he speaks up again. “I’m glad our friend group kept us linked to each other all these years, though. Even if I never really talked to you except to argue with you, our… _whatever_ … is probably one of the longest relationships I’ve had.”

“Me, too.” Nini clears her throat, grabbing a bag of sugar from behind him and placing it into her cupboard. “So! What are you planning to make for tonight?”

He runs a hand through his hair as he thinks about it. “I dunno, maybe some lasagna? I feel like that’s always a crowd pleaser. Anyways, I gotta go home and pick up some clothes and make the lasagna, but I’ll swing by later to pick you up to go to Ashlyn’s?”

Nini’s startled by the reminder of the fact that they’ve basically spent the last 36 hours together, just the two of them. She hadn’t realized that he hasn't even been to his own home, yet. Somehow, she’s already gotten used to having him in hers. “Um, yeah, that sounds good. See you in an hour or two?”

“See you!” 

As soon as he leaves, Nini’s phone buzzes with an incoming FaceTime call from Kourtney. “Hey, Kourt! I thought you’d be in the air by now?”

Kourtney rolls her eyes. “My flight got delayed. New York will have to wait, I guess. In the meantime, I figured I’d give you a call. How’s the doubles training going? Any bloodshed yet?”

“Ha ha, very funny. No, we’re actually… Well, I don’t know. We kinda spent the last day and a half completely together the whole time, and I didn’t even notice? Like, I didn’t feel weird about it or anything. Ricky just went home to get ready for Ashlyn’s potluck thing, so this is the first time I’ve been alone since the weekend.”

Kourtney raises an eyebrow. “He slept over?”

“Yeah, we fell asleep watching a movie after the most exhausting day of training I’ve had in my _life_. What’s more, I have this kind of crazy plan involving a rope that may mean that we’ll be attached at the hip— literally— for the rest of the week, on top of this whole bet business…” 

When Nini’s done explaining the last few days, Kourtney’s eyebrows have climbed to the top of her forehead. “Nini, I don’t know what to say…”

“Me neither! I feel like I should be freaking out or something, because this definitely isn’t normal, right? I shouldn’t feel so comfortable with the guy after hating him for so many years?”

Kourtney hums. “Well, you said it yourself— you’ve known him for so many years. It makes sense that you’d be comfortable around him. Plus, would you really classify what you felt for him as hate?”

Nini sighs. “No. We just had a talk about that, actually. I told him why I never liked him when we were kids, and I also told him about the whole thing with my moms, too. It’s just… weird. I kind of like having him around.”

“Ricky’s a good guy, Nini. It’s not weird that you’re enjoying his presence in your life, especially when you guys have so much in common.”

“I guess. Enough about me, though. What about you? How long do you think you’ll be in New York this time?”

“Just a week, I think. I have to deal with some trademarking issues, and then I have that panel to speak at for female entrepreneurs.”

“Oh my god, isn’t Michelle Obama going to be there?”

“YES, and I think I’ll probably pass out when I see her!”

As the two girls chat, Nini gets to work on the blueberry pie. By the time Kourtney’s flight is about to board, the pie is almost done baking, and Nini has changed into a green, floral wrap dress. 

“You look so cute, Nini! I haven’t seen that dress in so long, I’m glad you dug it out again,” Kourtney enthuses.

Nini blushes. “Yeah, well, Ricky did my laundry last night. It’s funny, you’d think he’d be as laid back about house chores as he is about everything else, but he’s super strict about laundry and dishes and stuff. I swear, my place has never looked better.”

“You, too, Nini. You look better than you have in months.” Kourtney hopes Nini knows that she isn’t just talking about the dress, because it’s true— whatever had been weighing Nini down in the past couple months hadn’t gone away, but Ricky’s newfound presence in her life seems to have made it easier to bear.

Nini makes a face. “Thanks, I think. Safe travels!” 

Shortly after the call ends, Nini’s intercom buzzes. “Yo, Nini! I’m here!” Ricky shouts.

“Ricky, it’s an intercom, I can hear you perfectly well without you shouting,” Nini grumbles. She packs up her pie and grabs her purse, and then she debates with herself about applying some red lipstick. They’re just going to Ashlyn’s house for dinner with their friends, it’s not like it’s a whole thing… “Oh, whatever. It’s just Ricky. It’s just Ricky!” she repeats to herself. She puts on the lipstick anyway.

In the car, Ricky fluffs up his hair a couple times. He’s still checking himself out in the mirror when Nini knocks on the passenger side window, startling him. “Oopsie, sorry.” He unlocks the door for her, and then he’s hit with the scent of blueberry pie. All of a sudden, he’s overwhelmed by nostalgia and comfort. “You really made me a blueberry pie?”

“It’s not just for _you_ , Ricky. But yeah, I made you a blueberry pie.” Nini knows she’s contradicting herself, but she’ll do it happily if it means Ricky gets to keep that contented look on his face. 

When they arrive at Ashlyn’s house, everyone else is already there. Ricky goes off to help Ashlyn prepare one of the last few dishes, while Nini is instantly cornered by Carlos and Seb.

“So?” They demand in unison.

“What?”

“You and Ricky walked in together…” Carlos makes some unintelligible motion with his hands.

“Oh, please. We’re partners for the next few months, you know that.”

“Yeah, but you guys already look at each other differently. I could feel the force of Ricky’s heart eyes from across the room,” Seb points out.

“It’s probably just because I made him a blueberry pie and he’s excited to eat it because it’s his favorite!”

“You made him a _pie_? You’ve never made _me_ a pie. Seb, has Nini ever made _you_ a pie?” Carlos turns to his boyfriend accusingly.

Seb lifts his hands in surrender. “Nope! Can confirm, I’ve never been pied by Nina Salazar-Roberts.”

“You guys are so silly,” Nini laughs, shoving Carlos’s shoulder gently. “How about this, I’ll make you a pie next time, okay?”

“Only if it’s pecan!”

“Ew, babe, you like pecan pie?”

In the kitchen, Ashlyn and Ricky work in tandem, comfortable in the silence. They’re putting the finishing touches on the salad when Ashlyn turns to Ricky and says, “So… Nini.”

“What about her?” Ricky is being purposefully obtuse, because Ashlyn is far too perceptive for her own good.

“Nothing, nothing.” Ashlyn hums. She looks far too sly for Ricky’s taste, but he isn’t about to ask why. “Dinner’s ready!” she calls out. Most of their friend group had been able to make it tonight, with a few exceptions.

“Where’s your other half?” Big Red asks Gina.

She rolls her eyes. “EJ’s on a date. Collective moment of silence, everybody.”

“Oof.” Big Red winces. EJ’s never had the best of luck when it comes to dating. “Who is it this time?”

“She seems kinda normal? She’s a teacher, apparently.” Gina shrugs. “Can’t be worse than the last one.”

“Was that the stalker?” asks Seb.

“No, I think it was the one with the crazy ex-boyfriend,” says Carlos. 

“No, no, it was for sure the one who wanted to get married the next day,” Ricky argues.

“I thought it was the one who brought her parents with her?” Ashlyn interjects.

Gina shakes her head at them. “You’re all wrong. The last one was the one with that was actually a pair of twins. Remember? One of them was named Katherine with a K and the other one was named Catherine with a C. I swear, EJ always attracts the strangest people.”

“Well, I hope the teacher is nice?” Nini offers. 

Ashlyn laughs. “One can only hope. The poor guy’s been through enough. Okay, everybody, dig in!” 

Over dinner, they run through the gamut of conversation topics, from Seb’s new figure skating routine to Big Red’s latest hangout with Stephen Curry.

“So, how’s the doubles training going?” Gina asks.

Ricky and Nini wince in unison. “It’s… going,” Nini responds diplomatically.

“Our coach for the week is batshit crazy,” Ricky declares. “His name is Steve, but we’re not sure if that’s his real name, or if he’s even a real person—”

Gina interrupts him with, “Wait, Steve? With the white hair?”

“Yeah! You know him or something?”

“ _Know_ him? Please, he’s absolutely legendary. He comes and goes, but he’s for sure the best doubles coach out there. His methods are… unorthodox, I’ll admit, but his success rate is phenomenal. I would know; he trained EJ and I for three months,” Gina explains.

“Three _months_? It hasn’t even been three _days_ yet, and I already can’t wait for the week to be over,” Ricky grumbles.

“ _Aha_!” Nini points triumphantly at Gina, then back at Ricky. “See, I told you he was legendary. And that just further proves that we should do the rope thing!”

“Rope thing?” Seb blinks owlishly at them.

Carlos makes a show of covering Seb’s ears, then asks, “Is that a kink that you guys are exploring?”

Seb pushes Carlos’s hands away from him, laughing. But he, too, leans forward and asks, “No, seriously, what’s the rope thing?”

By now, both Ricky and Nini’s faces are bright red. “Really? You had to explain it like _that_?” Ricky mutters to Nini.

She swats him away and explains the training exercise Steve had put them through today and how she thinks doing it full-time could improve her and Ricky’s partnership. “So yeah, that’s the rope thing. I know it sounds kinda wild, but I really think it could work!”

Gina looks thoughtful. “I mean, it’s not _that_ wild. EJ and I did the rope thing for a couple weeks of training, but only during the actual training sessions. But if you’ve only got Steve for a week, it’s not a bad idea to fast-track the whole thing and just do it outside of training, too.”

Nini turns to Ricky with an _I-told-you-so_ look in her eyes. “See? Gina thinks it could work, too! And besides, with this whole bet thing, you’re practically spending all your time at my place anyway. You might as well fully commit.”

“Oh, well now that it has _Gina’s_ stamp of approval, sure, why not?” Ricky says dryly. “Who cares what _I_ think, right?”

“Well then, tell me! Why don’t you want to do it?” Nini is practically pouting now, and Ricky has to force his eyes away from her mouth to respond.

“Okay, for one, what about sleeping and going to the bathroom and stuff like that?”

“We won’t wear the rope while we’re sleeping, silly. I have a guest bedroom and en-suite that you are free to use, and we obviously can take the rope off for going to the bathroom and stuff,” Nini counters.

“Okay, well what about—” Ricky stops. “I actually don’t have anything else.” It’s true— between cooking for Nini and driving her around and training with her, Ricky really hasn’t left her side since the week started. Might as well toss a physical rope into the whole ordeal.

“Fantastic!” Nini bounces a little in her seat, delighted. Helplessly, a grin spreads across his face at her display of excitement. _Well, shit_. He’s in deep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> up next (hopefully— who knows, with the erratic nature of my writing process lol): ricky and nini continue training, their relationship develops further, and we get deeper into the root of the problems in their playing
> 
> also can someone tell me why ao3 adds an extra space at the end of certain words in italics when i paste over my work from google docs? i have to go in and edit the extra spaces out every time after i post a chapter, and it's really annoying me lmao


	4. changeover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *changeover occurs every two games in a set, and it's when the players exchange places and switch to play on the other side of the court.
> 
> lmao so. this has all been freeform (as my writing usually is), and it's kind of been running away from me, so i've decided to extend it to 7 chapters. hopefully i'll be able to wrap up the story i want to tell in that amount of space, but who knows!
> 
> quite frankly i don't remember what i promised would be in this chapter, but it probably isn't here... oops. also, my updating is going to be a lot more sporadic since school is in full swing now, but i definitely want to see this through and finish it soon.

The whole rope thing isn’t actually as weird or as bad as Ricky thought it would be. Like Nini said, he was already going to be spending all his time with her anyways; the rope is just a physical manifestation of such. Still, it makes for some interesting interactions. 

On Wednesday morning, Ricky wakes up in Nini’s guest room. He contemplates the cheery yellow walls and the gauzy curtains on the windows, and he decides that he likes it much better than his own guest room, which has always felt rather stark and impersonal to him. He’s been making excuses about not renovating the rest of his place based on the limited amount of time he’s been in Florida, but seeing Nini’s cute little design flourishes (now that he can actually see the floor, after clearing away all the clutter) reminds him that it’s kind of ridiculous that he’s only done his kitchen so far. 

Nini’s voice floats down the hallway, breaking him out of his thoughts. “Morning, handsome.” She beams at him. 

He narrows his eyes at her. “What do you want?”

“What, I can’t just call you handsome?” She blinks innocently at him. 

He raises an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t do it unless you wanted something, Nini. I’m not _that_ easy, you know.”

“Okay, fine.” She huffs and drops the ingenue act, then produces the piece of rope from behind her back. “It’s time.”

“You don’t have to say it so ominously,” Ricky grouses, but he gets out of bed and starts changing into his clothes for the day. Nini lets out a squeak, whipping around to face away from him. “Can’t handle a little skin, Neens?” he teases gently. The nickname is new on his tongue, but their other friends use it, and he likes the way she softens at the sound. 

“Please. You’d have to pay me to look,” she splutters, but she doesn’t sound convincing, not even to herself. Normally, she wouldn’t care, but Ricky has been stirring up strange feelings in her recently, and she’d like to nip that in the bud as soon as possible. 

He turns around and throws his arms wide open. “Tie me up, baby.”

Nini rolls her eyes as she turns back around. “Very mature, Ricky.”

When she comes close and bends to tie the rope around his waist, he makes a little sound of wonder. “You’re kinda short,” he says. 

She straightens and gives him a weird look. “I mean, not really? Pretty sure I’m just the average female height.”

_Yeah_ , he wants to say, _but you’re short enough that you’d have to get up on your tippy toes to kiss me._ And good god, where the hell did that thought come from?

In the kitchen, Ricky searches high and low for a coffee maker, before remembering that he hadn’t even picked up coffee at the grocery store yesterday. He eyes Nini’s cup of iced lemon water and wrinkles his nose. That just won’t do. “We need to get you a coffee maker, and some nice coffee,” he declares. 

Nini gestures between him and her cup of iced lemon water. “As you can see, I don’t drink coffee.” 

“Yeah, but I do.” Ricky crosses his arms, gearing up for a little spat. He’s realized that he _likes_ arguing with her; he likes the way she comes alive and gives as good as she gets, he likes how they understand each other well enough to know which lines should not be crossed while still keeping the conversation interesting, and he likes it so much that he keeps coming back for more. 

“Oh c’mon, it’s just two more days that you’re staying here. I’m not getting you a coffee maker just for two days.”

“So you’d get a coffee maker for me if I stayed longer than two days?” Ricky’s grinning now. 

“That’s not what I said, dumbass.” Nini hides her smile behind her cup and wonders when arguing with Ricky became so _fun_. 

“Well, I’m just gonna say that there’s no way I’m showing up to practice uncaffeinated.”

“You’re so high-maintenance, Ricky.” Nini shoves his shoulder playfully. “But we can stop by a coffee shop on the way to training, or something. Come on, I’m going to put this cup in the sink.” They move as one as she makes her way to the sink, successfully keeping the rope between them loose and unstrained. 

“Seeing as how _I’m_ driving us, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude that you’re giving me permission to do that,” he responds dryly, taking the cup from her and putting it in the dishwasher with a pointed look. “And please do your dishes, Nini. I’m only here for two more days, after all.”

Nini sticks her tongue out at him, even going so far as to blow a raspberry, which prompts a loud laugh out of him. She never fails to keep him on his toes, that’s for sure. “Alright, trophy husband, let’s go to training,” she says, patting him on the arm and moving them along towards the door.

“Listen, I’ve watched a lot of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and I’m telling you, I’d make a _fantastic_ trophy husband,” he insists, trailing after her. 

“Oh, I don’t doubt it, Ricky. You look damn good in your pink apron.” She winks at him, and he laughs again, his eyes crinkling at the corners with mirth. Yeah, he doesn’t think he could ever get bored when it comes to her. 

At the coffee shop, they get a lot of strange looks when they come in with the rope in between them, but it’s Florida, and they’re hardly the strangest sight in the area. Ricky orders some sophisticated-sounding drink while Nini appraises him carefully. 

“Oh my god,” she says finally. “You’re a coffee snob. A verified, pretentious, high-brow coffee snob.” While he splutters and tries to deny it, she just giggles. “Who would’ve thought that laidback, easygoing, chill-is-my-middle-name Ricky Bowen would be such an elitist about coffee, of all things.”

“If you’d ever had the coffee in Europe, you’d be a snob about coffee, too,” he informs her, mimicking the haughty tone she usually reserves for arguing with him. 

“Again, I don’t drink coffee, but whatever you say, coffee snob.”

“Oh c’mon, just try one! One coffee, and if you don’t like it, we can get you a cold-pressed juice or something, okay?” He’s got his big doe eyes trained on her, and she decides that he’s way too powerful with those eyes. 

“Fine, fine,” she grumbles. “But get me the cold-pressed juice with the lemons in it!”

Ricky orders her some variation of a latte, then grabs the juice she wants and tucks it behind his back. He’s confident he won’t need it, but that confidence is quickly shattered when Nini takes one sip of her latte and screws up her face in the most adorably disgusted expression he’s ever seen. He’s hopelessly endeared by it, so he hands her the juice without comment and accepts the jab she aims at his coffee snobbery. 

“One day, Nini,” he declares as they push open the door together to exit. “One day, I’ll get you to like coffee.”

She pauses when they’re at his car, giving him a curious look. “What’s it like to be so sure of yourself all the time?” The question is sincere, though he would’ve taken it as a sneered insult a week ago, and she would’ve given it as such. 

“I mean, I’m not. I have doubts just like anyone else, Neens. I just don’t want to be held back by doubts, I guess.” He shrugs and pulls open the driver door, then gestures for her to get in. They do a complicated dance where she crawls over the center console to get to the passenger seat, while he allows the rope between them to pull himself in and maneuver behind her to end up in the driver’s seat, and then they’re off to training. However, Ricky’s words linger in Nini’s mind the whole day. 

It’s not like Nini has never heard those aphorisms before— “you miss 100% of the shots you never take”, “a ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for”, etc. But Nini has always intended to make 100% of the shots she does take, and her ship sails steady and safe on a course she plotted out carefully years ago. She’d like to think that she’s a strategist, not a coward; she hedges her bets, and there isn’t anything wrong with that, right? Yet there’s something about Ricky Bowen that makes her want to take risks— he makes her heart race and her hands shake, and she’s still trying to decide if she likes it or not. 

Training is not as bad as the previous days; already, Ricky and Nini are more attuned to each other’s movements, and they end the day mostly in one piece. Ricky’s got a cut above his eyebrow from where one of Nini’s racket strings had snapped just as she had stretched her racket out to return a shot in front of him, when they had both been standing side by side practicing volleys. She winces now, looking at the cut— it’s not deep, but it’s long, and it doesn’t look pleasant. 

While Ricky packs up his gear, Nini rifles through her bag, finding her little metal first aid kit. She crosses the short distance (ropes-length) between them easily, brandishing the box in her hand, and orders him to sit down on the bench with their gear. 

He obeys warily. “You’re not about to jump me, are you?”

Nini rolls her eyes and steps between his legs. “How many times do I have to say it? In your dreams, lover boy.”

“No, I mean like, are you about to attack me with that metal box?”

“This is a first aid kit, but you’re kind of making me wish I could attack you with it.” Nini flicks the side of his head, ignoring his ensuing stream of complaints. She takes out a cotton ball and a bottle of antiseptic from her kit, gently cleaning the cut above his eyebrow. Then, she surveys her collection of bandaids before sticking a bright yellow Spongebob one on the cut. 

“Wait no, I wanted the Hello Kitty one,” Ricky whines unabashedly, pouting and turning his big doe eyes on her all at once. 

“Here, you can take it for the road.” Nini presses the Hello Kitty bandaid into his hand and congratulates herself internally for slowly building up immunity to Ricky’s suite of persuasion techniques. _Really, a face like that is just_ begging _to be kissed_ , she thinks. Immediately, heat rises to her cheeks at the idea. She’s always known Ricky was attractive, but all the time they’ve been spending together must be getting to her head, because she knows it’s crazy to want to kiss him. He’s her rival, her partner, her… friend?

Ricky must notice the conflict going on in her mind, because he peers closer at her and asks her if she’s okay. His increased proximity is certainly not helping, so Nini gives some nonsensical response and hurries off to the car. She doesn’t feel normal again until they’re back at her place, where he disappears down the hallway to take a shower after promising to teach her how to make pasta tonight. 

As soon as Nini hears the bathroom door close and the water running, she calls up Gina.

“Hey, what’s up?” Gina answers the call in her pajamas.

Nini checks the time; it’s barely 6pm. “You’re going to bed this early?” 

“Nah, it’s wash day.” Gina points to her hair. “So you actually caught me at a pretty good time to talk! And boy, do you look like you need to talk.”

Nini makes a face. “That obvious, huh?”

“Only because I know you. Now spill, Nini!”

Nini takes a deep breath and decides to jump right into it. “So I know you and EJ don’t have that kind of relationship, but have you ever wanted to kiss him?”

Gina’s face screws up in an expression of pure disgust. “He’s like my brother, Neens. Absolutely not.”

“No, I know, but I mean, like, in the beginning of your partnership— spending all that time together, getting to know each other so intimately; all that and you never wanted to kiss him?”

“Nope. Not even a little.” Gina narrows her eyes at Nini shrewdly. “Oh my god! This is about Ricky, isn’t it?”

Nini shushes her immediately. “Gina, please, he’s in the shower right now! Don’t say his name so loud!”

Gina just squeals. “I can’t believe this, you’ve got a _crush_!”

“I do not! Why would you say that, oh my god, that is so childish, and I would never— I mean— are you kidding me?”

“Nina Salazar-Roberts, you have a crush on that man. Call it an itch, or an attraction, or whatever you want, but you _like_ him!”

Nini groans, burying her face in her hands. “I think it’s just because we’ve been spending so much time together lately,” she finally decides. “Plus, I haven’t been on a date or gotten laid in forever… Yes, that’s gotta be it. As soon as this week is over and I can escape this… Ricky-filled haze that I’ve been walking around in, I’ll be back to normal.”

“Mmhm.” Gina looks supremely unconvinced. “I’m just saying, I spend more time with EJ than anyone else, and I’ve never wanted to kiss him.”

“I’m serious, Gina, I need to go on a date and get Ricky Bowen out of my system.”

“Why don’t you just get him out of your system by getting him _in_ your—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Gina Porter!”

Gina just laughs and tosses her a wink. “Anyways, if you really want to go on a date, I’ve got someone I can set you up with.”

“Really?” Nini straightens, intrigued. 

“Yeah, he’s some Silicon Valley dude EJ knows from high school. Really smart guy, funny, good personality, and he’s hot, too. His company just opened a branch down here so I think he’s been coming and going, but he’s in town this week, and I can totally give him your number. Honestly, the only reason I’m not asking him out myself is because I’d never live it down if I started dating one of EJ’s friends. But seriously, girl, trust me on this one— he’s a good guy.”

Nini hesitates for a second. Dating has never really been one of her priorities; she doesn’t need distractions from tennis, and dating isn’t even that good of a distraction in the first place. Then again, she’ll be damned if she doesn’t nip this nascent urge to kiss Ricky in the bud, so she agrees to let Gina give the guy her number. 

“Okay, his name is Xavier, and expect to get a text from him soon!”

“Sounds good!” Nini is giddy with excitement when she ends the call, and she’s still smiling when she enters the kitchen to observe Ricky, who’s pulling out pots and pans with one hand while he rubs a towel through his hair with the other hand. It’s not the most effective setup, so Nini swipes the towel out of his hands and hops onto the counter, crooking her finger at him to get him to come closer.

Ricky comes to stand between her legs, and he gives her a fond but bemused look. “What are you smiling about?” 

“I’m going on a date,” she sing-songs, looping her arms around his neck to dry his hair with the towel. 

Ricky raises an eyebrow. “Really? When? With who?”

“Gina set me up with EJ’s friend, Xavier, and—” Nini’s phone vibrates just then, cutting her off. Her smile grows wider after checking the text. “He just texted! He’s in town until Friday, so he wants to go out tomorrow… oh, damn it. I can’t go.”

“Why not?”

Nini gestures at the rope lying on the counter. “First of all, we gotta get that back on soon. Second of all, well, I can’t show up to a date tied to you, can I?”

Ricky shrugs. “If he likes you enough, it won’t matter.”

“He hasn’t _met_ me, Ricky.”

“So what? You’re _Nini_. I’d go on a date with you even if you were tied to another person.”

Nini pauses in her drying of his hair. She’s oddly touched— something in her stomach feels light and fluttery, and wow, have Ricky’s eyes always been this lovely? The way he’s looking at her now— sincere and solid, like he’s just telling her a fact of the universe— is enough to make her grateful she’s sitting down. Surely anyone’s knees would go weak at the sight of those eyes: warm and twinkly, brown flecked with gold and hazel, trained on her with heart-stopping intensity. Nini clears her throat and sets the towel down. “Um, your hair’s dry,” she says quietly. 

Ricky nods slowly, setting his hands down on the countertop on either side of her. “Thanks,” he murmurs. “It’s kinda tangled, though,” he tacks on absentmindedly. 

Nini breathes out, “Oh.” And then her hands are in his hair, gently threading through the curls and smoothing away the tangles. He closes his eyes and pushes his head into her hands, and she almost wants to laugh— he likes getting his hair played with, and if that isn’t the most endearing thing in the world, then Nini doesn’t know what is. 

When Ricky speaks again, his voice is low and rough. “Anyways, like I was saying… you’re Nini. He should be jumping at the chance to go on a date with you, even under these strange circumstances. Or, we could just not do the rope thing for a night.”

“Absolutely not. I committed to this, so I’m going to see it though.” Nini sticks her nose in the air with determination, and Ricky marvels at how that action— which had previously been so annoying and condescending— now makes him want to kiss the tip of her nose. 

“So explain the situation to him. It’s his loss if he decides that it’s too weird for him.” Ricky takes the towel from her hands and slings it over his shoulder, leaving to return it to the bathroom. 

Nini bites her lip in apprehension and stares down at her phone, where the empty text box stares back at her mockingly. “Oh, screw it,” she mutters. Once the text about the whole rope thing is sent, she puts her phone down and resolves not to look at it for the rest of the night. Ricky’s right— it’s Xavier’s loss if he says no. Still, she’d like to wait a couple hours before he lets her down. 

Ricky emerges in the kitchen again, smelling like aftershave and laundry and all the other clean, crisp scents in the world. He grins at Nini. “Ready for pasta?”

Pasta goes well— Ricky is a patient teacher and Nini is a quick study, so dinner is ready in short order. They decide to eat just sitting on the countertop, even though Ricky whines about how it’s unsanitary and how he’ll have to wipe down the surface later. 

Ricky’s halfway through wolfing down his pasta when Nini squeaks out a timid, “Thanks.” 

He lifts his head up and furrows his eyebrows at her. “For what?”

“Close your mouth and chew before you speak,” she admonishes on instinct. Then, “I dunno. Thanks for what you said earlier, about how I’m me and he’d be lucky to go on a date with me, and all that. You didn’t have to say that, especially when we’ve just started being cordial to each other.” And wow, it really has only been a couple days, hasn’t it? Nini feels like it’s been a lifetime. In a way, it has been— they’ve grown up together, and they’ve gone through this terrible and beautiful world of professional sports together, and now they’re training together. But Nini has never been this close to the center of Ricky’s orbit before; she’s never been close enough to experience how he burns like a supernova— so bright that it hurts, and yet, she can’t look away. 

Ricky breaks her train of thought by turning those big doe eyes on her again. “Just because we only recently started being nice to each other doesn’t mean that I don’t know you, Nini. You’re some kind of wonderful. I’ve always known that, even when you were being a pain in the ass.”

“Oh, _I_ was a pain in the ass, huh? You were just an innocent bystander?” Nini teases, breaking a piece off of her garlic bread and throwing it at him. He complains about having to clean that up later and calls her childish, then she sticks her tongue out at him, and it’s all so very domestic and perfect that it’s a shame that neither of them notices it. 

* * *

Nini spends the better part of Thursday in a daze, shocked from the text she got from Xavier in the morning expressing enthusiasm for the date, even if she was going to bring Ricky Bowen along on a rope. 

Ricky spends the better part of Thursday staring at Nini with an inscrutable look on his face, until she finally breaks and snaps, “ _What_?” at him. They’re in her room while she flips through her closet frantically, trying to choose something to wear.

He shrugs nonchalantly. “This is essentially a blind date, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, what’s your point?”

“So he doesn’t know anything about you.”

“Yes, Ricky, that’s kind of the definition of a blind date. I don’t know anything about him either, other than what Gina told me. But she said he’s basically perfect, so I’m feeling good!”

“Okay.” He says it with such simplicity and serenity that it sets her on edge.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She crosses her arms and glares at him.

“Oh, nothing…” Ricky traces a finger along one of the dresses she had tossed on the bed. “I’m sure he’s great. He’ll probably set up some generic dinner date, ask you all the basic questions, and it’ll be perfectly fine. But he doesn’t know you.”

“He’s _about_ to know me!”

“Sure, fair enough. I’m just saying, don’t get your hopes up for some spectacular romance or anything.”

“What’s your problem, anyway? Weren’t you the one saying that he should be jumping at the chance to go on a date with me just yesterday?”

Ricky stands up and unties the rope from his waist. “Yeah, he should. Anyone should. I would be, too, if I were him. And if I were him, I wouldn’t take you on a generic dinner date and ask you all the basic questions. I’d make it spectacular.” He crosses the room to bend down and untie her end of the rope, then he hands her the dress he had been fiddling with on the bed. “You look nice in red. I’ll leave so you can get ready,” he says. 

As soon as he leaves the room, Nini huffs and turns on her music, blasting it louder than the muddled thoughts swirling in her head. Who the hell is Ricky Bowen to come and confuse her like this? Who gave him that right?

Out in the living room, Ricky puts his head in his hands and sighs. He’s not entirely sure what he’s doing, either. All he knows is that yesterday, the possibility of Nini going on a date with some random dude had seemed so distant and unlikely. Now that she’s actually about to go— with him in tow, to boot— he feels the beginning of a burning feeling in his chest. He isn’t stupid; he knows that it’s jealousy. But jealousy would imply that he harbors romantic feelings for Nini, and that is just… weird. Too weird.

Seb’s FaceTime call comes at just the right moment; Ricky feels like his kindest, most empathetic friend is probably the most well-equipped to deal with this situation. “Ricky! Hope I caught you at a good time! I missed your face. Seems like you’re spending all your time with Nini these days.” Seb wiggles his eyebrows at Ricky.

“Well, we’ve got that whole bet going on, and the rope thing, and training…” Ricky trails off. “Nah, you’re right. I _am_ spending a lot of time with Nini. Listen, it’s a bit of a long story, but I’m basically going on a date with Nini and another guy.” The instant the words leave his mouth, he knows he’s made a mistake.

Seb’s eyebrows shoot up. “Threesome?”

“No, no! Nini’s going on a blind date with some random dude that Gina set her up with; EJ’s classmate or something. And because we have this rope thing going on, I will also be going. But forget about that, I have a question for you.”

“Ask away.”

Ricky’s words come rushing out all at once. “Do you think it’s ridiculous for me to be jealous of Nini and this random dude? Like, we’re not… anything, you know? We’re friends, I guess. But that doesn’t give me a right to be jealous or anything, right?”

“I don’t know if jealousy is something that people have a right to feel, Ricky. In fact, I don’t know if there are any emotions that we have a right to feel— we just feel what we feel, and sometimes we can control it, but most of the time we can’t. If you’re feeling jealous, well, maybe that should tell you something.”

“Like what?”

“Like… maybe you like Nini.”

Hearing the words said out loud, so simply and starkly, makes Ricky physically reel back into the couch. “Whoa whoa whoa, slow down there, Sebby. Let’s not go that far.”

Seb shrugs, perfectly content to let Ricky slowly figure it out himself. “Fine. But I’m just saying, friends don’t look at friends the way you and Nini look at each other.”

“I look at everyone like that!”

“You’ve never looked at me like that.”

“I _could_ look at you like that!”

“Please, you’d have to get through Carlos first. In any case, I’ve never seen you look at _anyone_ like that.”

Ricky makes a face, clearly unnerved at the suggestion that he looks at Nini in any special kind of way. And yet, that would make sense, wouldn’t it? If he really does like Nini, then that would explain why all these flirtatious words have been falling out of his mouth out of nowhere, almost like he can’t control it. He used to antagonize Nini just to see when she’d break her perfectly curated facade, and that felt uncontrollable, too. Maybe he’s always felt an inexplicable draw to her, and it’s only ever manifested as competition and hostility in the past, but now it’s blooming into something softer and more tender by far. 

Seb speaks again, breaking Ricky out of his thoughts. “Just think on it, Ricky. Honestly, between the two of you, I’m surprised you’ve even gotten this far.”

That catches Ricky’s attention fast. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nini’s got tunnel vision when it comes to tennis and her career, Ricky, and you’re not exactly the brightest when it comes to romance, either.” 

Ricky’s jaw drops at Seb’s blunt words. “Damn, and here I thought you’d cut me some slack,” he mutters.

Seb just grins cheekily, blowing him a kiss. “I love you both dearly, though, and I want to see you guys be happy with each other if that’s what you want. Think about what I said, okay? And tell her that I love her and I miss her beautiful face!” 

Ricky stares at the screen for a long time after Seb hangs up, just pondering. By the time he registers the soft clicking of heels against hardwood, Nini is already standing right in front him. His eyes are still turned downward, so the first thing he sees is black heels and long legs. Ricky’s eyes trace upward to the hem of Nini’s dress— red. Silk drapes over the contours of her body; hips, waist, chest, and then two of the thinnest straps he’s ever seen in his life, resting daintily over her shoulders. Ricky feels like all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the room when his eyes reach hers. She’s just blinking, innocent and confused, and a bemused smile plays at her lips. He gulps audibly, then rasps out, “You look nice.”

“Really?” Nini blushes prettily and does a little turn. “You don’t think it’s too much for a first date?”

Right. She’s going on a date. Ricky clears his throat and stands up, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep himself from touching her. Nice? She looks _nice_? No, she looks like a goddamn dream. And not his. 

“Ricky?” Nini waves her hand in front of his face. Inwardly, she’s kind of pleased that she’s affecting him so much— he looks winded, and more than a little flustered, if the redness of his ears is anything to go by.

“Yeah! Yeah. Uh, no, I think it’s fine. Not too much, nope. Just right. Like Goldilocks, you know? Just right.” Ricky wonders why he can’t just die now, before he continues rambling and making a fool of himself.

“Okaaaaaaay, can we go? I don’t want to be late.” Nini turns and makes her way towards the door. And if she swings her hips a little more than necessary, well. That’s just too bad for Ricky.

* * *

Trouble comes the instant they arrive at the restaurant. Both Ricky and Xavier go to pull out Nini’s chair for her, to which she stifles a laugh and grabs the chair from them so she can seat herself. 

“Hey, Xavier, it’s really nice to meet you. Sorry about all this.” Nini gestures to the rope between her and Ricky, while Ricky just smirks at Xavier.

Xavier waves it off. “No worries, Nini. Besides, it’s not every day that you get to have dinner with not one but _two_ tennis pros, right?”

Nini laughs warmly. “I didn’t think there could be a silver lining in this situation, but I guess you’ve found it. In any case, the rope at least offers us a couple feet of distance on the tennis court, so I figured we could seat Ricky by himself at a table nearby. You can occupy yourself, right, Ricky?” She flutters her lashes at him. She’ll be damned if she lets him ruin this date with all his talk about how he could’ve done it better.

Ricky puts his hand up in the air, that damned smirk still playing at his mouth. “Oh yeah, for sure. I’m sure you two have lots of fun questions to ask each other.”

Dinner goes… fine, except that while Xavier is as smart and funny and interesting as Gina said he would be, Nini can feel Ricky’s gaze burning a hole into her back the whole time. When Xavier asks her what it’s like to train on such an elite level, Nini can almost hear Ricky’s mocking reply about how Xavier would never get it. When Nini returns the favor and asks Xavier about his company, she thinks she could be genuinely interested in the answer, but she can’t help but let her mind wander to brown eyes flecked with gold and hazel. When Xavier suggests that they split a dessert, Nini readily agrees, until he points to the slice of blueberry pie with ice cream on the menu. She has no real reason to back out now, other than the irrational thought that blueberry pie is Ricky’s favorite and it feels wrong to eat it without him. But Nini is far from irrational, so she tilts her nose a little higher in the air and orders the blueberry pie louder than she has to. Maybe she’s just freakishly attuned to him after spending so much time with him, but Nini swears she hears Ricky chuckle darkly before ordering the same thing from where he’s seated many feet away.

Time seems to pass too slowly and too quickly all at once; before she knows it, Xavier is standing up to press a kiss to her cheek and asking if she’d like to talk a walk with him. He walks with her to the garden outside the restaurant while Ricky trails behind. 

“I realize we can’t exactly go anywhere else with this whole setup,” Xavier gestures to the rope and Ricky, who’s looking far too amused standing at a lamppost away from them.

“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that, again.” Nini tucks her hair behind her ears and twists her hands together. 

“Nah, I had a good time. Anyway, I’d like to see you again when I come back into town, if that’s okay?” Xavier gives her an earnest look.

Nini makes a helpless sound in her throat. The night has been lovely, but she hasn’t felt anything— not a single spark, a single elevation in her heart rate, anything. She tells him as much, with kinder words.

He laughs self-deprecatingly and rocks back on his heels. “Yeah, I probably should’ve seen that coming. Figured I’d give it a shot anyway, but I guess I can’t really compete with someone who’s tied to you with a rope.”

“What?”

“Oh, you know. You’re into Ricky, aren’t you?”

Nini’s hands twist together with increasing speed. “Um, what? No, I-I don’t— uh, I mean, well…”

Xavier just laughs, stepping closer to place his hands over hers, stilling the nervous twisting. “It’s okay, Nini. I honestly did have a good time, for what it’s worth.”

Nini finally smiles. “It’s worth a lot, Xavier. The thing with Ricky… well, I’m still figuring it out. Thanks for bearing with me tonight.”

“You’re a delight, Miss Salazar-Roberts. Easiest night I’ve ever had to bear with.” He winks, and she laughs. “Goodnight, Nini. Maybe I’ll see you around.” He presses a kiss to her forehead and lets her go of her hands, tossing her one last smile before he leaves.

“So…” Ricky appears at her side with that inscrutable look on his face again. “Did Mr. Silicon Valley like the dessert?”

Nini feels like she should be annoyed at him, but she can’t. He hasn’t actually done anything, even though he’s been on her mind all night and technically ruined her date. Instead, all she does is turn to study him under the warm ambience of the lamps and fairy lights in the garden. “You’ve got a little something there,” she says finally, motioning to his face.

“Oh?” Ricky reaches up and swipes at his mouth, but he misses the spot of blueberry at the corner of his lips.

“It’s still there. Here, let me.” Nini rises on her toes and drags a finger across the spot, wiping it off cleanly. Suddenly, he grabs her wrist, holding her in place. She watches him curiously as he bends his head, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. Goosebumps erupt over her skin when his lips wrap around her finger, sucking off the bit of blueberry from it. The moment is over as quick as it began, and he drops her hand like nothing has happened. Nini’s heart pounds, her stomach flip-flops, and heat rushes to her cheeks. Damn it. She _does_ like him.

“Cold?” Ricky’s voice is warm and quiet in her ear. 

“Hmm?” It’s only then that she notices that she’s shivering, whether from the slight chill of the night or the moment that just occurred between them. “Oh, yeah. A little bit.”

Ricky shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders. “So, is there gonna be a second date?” he asks, trying to sound conversational.

Nini narrows her eyes at him. “Why do you care?”

“I still think I could do better, that’s all.” The gentle smile that curves his lips warms Nini from the inside out.

“No, there won’t be a second date. He was great, but I think we’re probably better off as friends.”

Ricky raises an eyebrow. “Friends? Like you and me?”

Nini shakes her head and tugs him along to his car. “Friends, yeah. But not like you and me.”

He doesn’t ask her to elaborate, and she’s glad. Maybe he’s not ready to ask yet. She’s certainly not ready to answer. Instead, they drive home, bathed in a silence that’s heavy but comfortable, lingering but promising. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> up next: who knows! certainly not me!
> 
> leave a comment or a kudos or both if you'd like :))


	5. no man's land

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *no man's land is the section of tennis court between the baseline (the horizontal line all the way at the back of the court) and the service line (the horizontal line that kinda splits the court in half). it's called no man's land because tennis players are generally taught to never stay standing in that section of the court; you either want to be back at the baseline or up in the service box, or moving in between, but you don't want to be stuck in no man's land because most balls do not land there. 
> 
> (side note: i've tried to keep the tennis terminology in the chapter kind of related to the content/plot points of each chapter? not sure if that's coming through or not, but it's just one of those little details that i thought would be nice to include lol)
> 
> me surreptitiously adding more chapters to this story? it's more likely than you'd think sdjfnjdf but yeah now we're up to 10 and if my self-control holds out then we will STAY there
> 
> notes for this chapter:  
> -ricky and nini have a conversation where the ranking system for tennis pros is mentioned; basically, points are calculated based on how far you advance in a particular set of tournaments, and then the world rankings (no. 1, no. 2, etc.) are based on the accumulation of points in a single year. so, in the conversation ricky and nini have, they're referring to the fact that nini has a much larger margin of points between her and the world no. 2 in female singles, whereas the number of points between ricky and the no. 2 in male singles are much closer. that boils down to the fact that nini is basically just winning a lot more than ricky— as she should! nini supremacy babyyyy  
> -not only is nini winning more, as based on the ranking points, but she's also winning her actual matches with larger margins— i.e., she's winning on a larger percentage of the shots she makes than ricky. that doesn't play into world rankings or anything (since those are based on whether you win the match, period), but it's just another indication of her prowess.  
> -but yeah in all honesty the difference in point margins is kind of a plot point/venue through which to explore these characters, but it's not vital or anything if that explanation didn't make sense lol  
> -here's an [article](https://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/08/atp-wta-tennis-rankings-how-do-they-work-faq-federer-serena-nadal) that explains the whole ranking system used in professional tennis more completely/more accurately; ngl my explanations and my usage of the system in this story are simplified for convenience  
> -basically the idea is just that tennis players are constantly defending their titles lmao
> 
> enjoy!!

Friday feels final in ways that don’t sit right with Nini. She’s sure she’ll see Ricky plenty as they continue training, but it’s the end of their one-week intensive, and their remaining doubles training is mostly self-directed as they pivot to focus on singles. She’ll be glad to be rid of the rope between them, but she’s self-aware enough to admit that she’ll miss his constant presence in her orbit. She doesn’t even want to start thinking about what she’ll do when she has to go back to meals cooked by an impersonal chef and silent car rides with her stoic driver. Nini knows that these are petty and selfish and completely unreasonable problems to have, but all the same, that’s where she’s at. So, Friday feels final in ways that don’t sit right with Nini, and it doesn’t help that the day starts off with a broken faucet. 

The faucet handle flies off and water explodes in her face when she tries to brush her teeth. Her shriek of surprise brings Ricky running down the hallway immediately, rattled and confused. 

“Nini? Nini, what’s wrong— oh!” Ricky gasps at the sight before him, then rushes in and scrambles to cover Nini with as much of his body as he can, trying in vain to shield her from the water that drenches both of them. His well-intentioned gesture unfortunately doesn’t translate into anything effective; he ends up pushing her under his left armpit while his right arm comes around as a suffocating force against her windpipe as he ushers her out of the bathroom. 

“What are you doing— get off of me, you oaf!” Nini wheezes, trying to shove him away. 

“Sorry, sorry!” He releases her and stumbles away in one, wild motion. “Sorry,” he repeats, sending her a sheepish look as he takes in her bedraggled appearance, which has only been made worse by the vice grip he held her in earlier. 

“What was the point of that? Now we’re both wet,” she huffs. 

Ricky shrugs, plucking his soaking t-shirt off his chest and then letting it stick back to him. “I dunno, I wasn’t really thinking, to be honest. You sounded like you were in danger, so my first instinct was just to get you out as quickly as possible.”

“My hero,” Nini remarks dryly, wringing her hair out distastefully onto the floor. 

“Nini— the watermarks—” Ricky gestures helplessly.

Nini rolls her eyes at him. “Oh my god, you nag like my moms.” 

For a second, it feels like they’ve been transported back to a week ago, when they were exchanging barbed remarks in a bar while their friends watched on in a mixture of amusement and apprehension. Then, their eyes meet, and brown flecked with gold and hazel crinkle at the corners in mirth, while warm chocolate brown softens into something approaching fondness. 

“It was kind of sweet and noble, in a stupid way,” Nini admits, reaching out to slap his chest in a motion that’s half-friendly, half-awkward. After the previous night, everything feels a little liminal, like they’re somewhere between a rock and a hard place and it’s just a matter of time before they collide with either one. Maybe there’s something softer and kinder to land on, instead, but they’re not quite ready to face it yet. 

“Thanks, that’s kind of my brand,” he jokes back, similarly situated in this amorphous zone of will-we-won’t-we. 

“So…” She lets the words stretch out into silence for a moment, and then she remembers that she is Nini Salazar-Roberts, and she refuses to be cowed by Ricky Bowen, let alone a _faucet_. “You know any handymen? I seem to remember you excelling in middle school woodshop, so, you know.” Yeah, her response is nowhere near as smooth as she wanted it to be. 

Ricky just smirks at her. “Right, because the fact that I made the best birdhouse in eighth grade means that I have a magical hotline to all the handymen in the world?”

“First of all, my birdhouse was pretty good, too, not that anyone’s counting—”

“Relax, Neens. I was just kidding. I can probably fix your faucet, honestly.” He rubs the back of his neck, looking for all the world like a shy schoolboy. 

She blinks at him, surprised at the change in demeanor. “Really? I was also kidding, you know. I don’t actually expect you to know a handyman or be one yourself. Your birdhouse was nice, but this seems a little above your pay grade.”

Instead of responding with a quip like she expects, he just asks, “Do you have a toolbox?”

“I would ask you if I look like someone who has a toolbox, but actually, yeah, I do.” Nini leads him down the hallway to a closet. “Big Red gave it to me as a gag gift during the last holiday season, and I never thought I’d use it, but hey, there’s a first time for everything, I suppose.” She pulls out the toolbox— chronically red and black, like a poster child for male stereotypes— and hands it to him. She follows him back to the bathroom but hovers at the doorway, wincing as he gets completely soaked through in the process of doing whatever he’s doing to fix her faucet. Five minutes later, the water shuts off, and she cheers. 

Ricky looks amused at her display of joy. “We’re not done yet, your highness,” he says. “Still gotta reattach your faucet handle so you can actually use this sink.”

“When’d you learn all this stuff?” she asks. 

Ricky’s ears redden. “Just, y’know, YouTube and stuff.”

A week ago, Nini would’ve left the conversation at that. (A week ago, she wouldn’t have even started the conversation.) Now, she feels an inexplicable but undeniable urge to learn more about him, to learn everything about him that she had missed in the years she spent antagonizing him. It’s not like she doesn’t know a lot about him already, due to the way they grew up together and the circles they run in. She knows about all the significant things in his life, like his parents’ divorce, the first time he won a tournament, which forehand grip he prefers, the way he treats his friends; all that, and more. Still, it feels like there are a million details to which she isn’t privy, and all because she always wrote him off as someone who didn’t deserve her time or attention (but somehow got it anyway). Those details are the ones that make a person more than merely the sum of their experiences, and she has a burning desire to collect those details and hold them close.

So, the next words that come out of her mouth are soft and earnest. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Ricky. But, if it means anything to you, I’d like to know if you let me.”

He stops working for a second, quietly but significantly blown away at her words. It’s not just the way she speaks them— tender, like her voice is cloaked in gossamer— but also the meaning behind them. For the longest time, he’d argued with her and fought with her just to get a reaction out of her. Sure, it had all started when they were kids and annoyed the hell out of each other, but in later years, all he wanted was to see her break her high-and-mighty act and just _look_ at him fully. He knows he’s worth looking at, and it had always chafed at him to think that she didn’t agree. Now, it sounds like all she wants to do is look at him and understand him, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with that information. So, he decides to start with the truth. 

“Well, you remember I went and trained in Europe for a couple years, right?” 

“Yeah, Spain.”

“Mmhm. Spain was my home base for a little while, but I kind of hopped around places in Europe, just wandering and having a bit of fun. I dunno, I guess I just wanted some freedom from tennis after the training academy and, like, all of my life before that. So I just traveled and hiked and did dumb shit, but you’d be surprised at how quickly that gets boring. I really did pick up a bunch of carpentry and handyman skills from YouTube, and I honed those skills in every apartment I rented. I’d pick a section of the apartment and renovate it, and then I’d usually lose my security deposit, which, in hindsight, was really stupid. But yeah, that’s when I learned all this stuff.” Ricky snaps the toolbox shut and turns on the faucet to wash his hands, grinning as the water flows out smoothly. “Good as new, your highness.”

Nini laughs, loud and bright, clapping as she dissolves into more delighted giggles. “Wouldya look at that! Ricky Bowen, cook, cleaner, and handyman, all in one. What _can’t_ you do, dear trophy husband of mine?”

“I can’t dance,” he blurts out, then mentally berates himself. That was obviously a rhetorical question, and he just had to go and answer it. 

However, Nini doesn’t look like she’s going to laugh at him. Rather, she looks contemplative, and just a little pleased.

He clears his throat and rubs a hand through his hair. “So, what do you want for breakfast?”

“Waffles? I’ll help,” she offers. “Ashlyn gave me a Micky Mouse waffle maker as her gag gift for the holidays season two years ago, and I haven’t opened it since.”

“Oh yeah?” He grins, following her to the kitchen. “I kinda missed that tradition with you guys while I was away. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s kind of a miracle that you and I never got stuck with each other for secret gag gift giving all those years before I went to Europe.”

Nini hums thoughtfully as she starts mixing waffle batter. “I’m pretty sure our friends just kept our names separate. Especially during those early years in high school? When we were still on our prank war streak? Imagine getting gag gifts for each other then. It would have been a disaster.” Silence reigns for a moment as they work in tandem, with her preparing batter in small batches to taste and him scooping batter into the waffle maker. Finally, she asks the question that’s been on her mind since he came to Florida. “So why did you stay in Europe for so long?”

Ricky tenses a bit, still a little stuck on the idea that Nini wants to know all of these details about him. His hesitation lasts for much less time than the first, though. “Like I said, initially it was just because I wanted to get away from tennis for a while. Obviously I couldn’t just fuck around the whole time because it’s not like I stopped playing when I was away, so I kept up with my training. But it was nothing like the training you did, I’m sure, to get your winning record.” 

Nini just nods. No need to act humble or flattered about that comment; it’s simply true. She’d given her whole life to this sport, and she’d worked damn hard to secure her World No. 1 spot, to the point where she was practically untouchable— at least for now, anyway. Still, the wide margin of points between her and No. 2 doesn’t give her as much satisfaction as she’d thought it would. She tries not to think too much about this, as it just returns the weight on her shoulders and the stormcloud that had been hovering over her head for the past few months.

Ricky, on the other hand, stands in a much shakier position. The margin between him and No. 2 is much smaller, and yet, he never seems to crack or even tense under the pressure of defending his title every time he steps on a court. It’s one of the things that had used to fuel a lot of Nini’s animosity towards him— it just didn’t seem fair that he could be a World No. 1 just like her and skip all the debilitating, self-inflicted pressure… Yeah, so Nini and her sports psychologist have talked about this a few times.

“Anyways,” Ricky continues, “I think I spent so long in Europe because I thought I could make myself feel at home there.” He grins ruefully. “Clearly, the trail of partially-renovated apartments I left there says otherwise. Salt Lake City was my childhood home, and Chicago was where I lived after the divorce, but that was just a house, you know? And the training academy was for training, obviously. I dunno, I guess I’ve just never had a place to call my own home, somewhere that I chose and built for myself.” Now he winces, suddenly cognizant of how deeply personal this conversation has gotten. “Sorry, you probably didn’t want to hear about all that—”

“Hey.” Nini stops him by placing a hand over his mouth. It’s kind of abrasive and certainly harsh, but his heartbeat picks up at the feeling of her touching his mouth, and he shuts up instantly. “You don’t have to be happy-go-lucky Ricky all the time, you know? You can talk about these things if you want. I told you before that I’ll always want to hear your story, because it’s yours, and I meant it. So don’t apologize to me for that. God knows you’ve got, like, at least seven pranks from high school to apologize for instead,” she jokes.

Underneath her hand, he smiles. Their eyes lock on each other for a long moment, and then she seems to remember what she’s doing and snatches her hand away with a hasty apology.

“That’s okay, your highness. There are easier ways to shut me up, you know,” he jokes back, making a kissy-face at her. She laughs as she shoves him away, he swipes a line of waffle batter onto her cheek in retaliation, she starts chasing him around the kitchen, and they’re back to normal— or whatever counts as their new normal after this week. 

* * *

Friday ends in a much more anti-climactic fashion than Nini expected. She bids Ricky goodbye at the end of training, and then that’s it. For the first time in a week, they go their separate ways, and Nini finds herself feeling a little empty for it. When she gets home, she starts a load of laundry out of habit— Ricky had nagged her to do it throughout the week. For his part, Ricky returns to an empty apartment that he hasn’t seen in days. Everything’s still spotless, but his usual post-training routine of watching reality TV doesn’t soothe him as much as it usually does. Part of him longs for bad movies, boring documentaries, and ice cream on someone else’s (much comfier) couch, but he’s always been good at running away from his problems, so he shelves that thought for later and stubbornly finishes a season of some random virtual dating show.

Nini’s intercom buzzes as she’s in the middle of putting together a blueberry pie for reasons that she refuses to think about. For a second, her heart leaps into her throat as she considers the possibility that it might be Ricky. However, when she answers it, Ashlyn’s voice sounds out.

“Hey, Neens! I thought I’d swing by and come hang for a bit now that Ricky isn’t hogging all your time.” Laughter can be heard in Ashlyn’s voice even through the intercom. 

The anticipation of potentially seeing Ricky again melts away into fondness for Ashlyn. “Perfect timing, Ash. You want pie?”

When Ashlyn bustles in through the door, she’s carrying sunflowers and a box of cherry tomatoes. “I stopped by the farmer’s market after work, and I know you never get out to those kinds of things, so these are for you.”

Nini throws her arms around Ashlyn in a tight hug. “You are literally the best!” she exclaims. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Ashlyn grins and starts to rummage around for a vase for the sunflowers. “Damn, your cabinets are so much more organized than I remember!”

“That would be Ricky’s fault,” Nini quips. “He was like my housekeeper this week. But at least my housekeeper doesn’t nag at me! I’m finding myself doing my dishes and putting my stuff away just to avoid his complaining every day.”

Ashlyn hides a smirk behind the vase she’s found. “Is that so?”

Nini narrows her eyes at her. “Yes, Ashlyn Moon Caswell, that is so.” 

Ashlyn’s eyes flick pointedly to the blueberry pie in the oven, and Nini groans. Yep, Ashlyn’s still got it. She offers Nini a warm, teasing smile as she sits at the kitchen island. “I’m not your sports psychologist because that would be, like, a conflict of interest in so many ways, but I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that something’s changed between you and Ricky over the past week, right?”

Nini chews on her lip thoughtfully as she sits down next to Ashlyn. “I mean, sure, I guess. Well, okay, it feels like a lot has changed, but at the same time nothing has changed? I don’t know, Ash, he’s just so confusing. Like, I’ve known him my whole life, but now I feel like I’m seeing him in a different light?”

“Maybe you’re just finally seeing him at all, Nini. I know you guys had your reasons for annoying each other all those years, but to be honest, from the outside it just looked like he was trying to get your attention by being annoying, and you refused to give him attention just to be annoying.” 

“Jeez, you’re really on a take-no-prisoners bend tonight,” Nini pouts. “I just feel like… I know all the important things about him, because I’ve known him for so long, but I also don’t know any of the little things about him, because I tried to ignore him for so long. Does that make any sense?”

“It makes a lot of sense, I promise. So, now you want to know all the little things about him?”

“Something like that. I think I want to be his friend, but then he’ll say something about how anybody would be lucky to go on a date with me and how he thinks he could take me on a better date than Xavier, and sometimes he looks at me like, I don’t know, like he’s going to kiss me or something. And… sometimes I feel like I’m going to kiss him,” Nini confesses in a whisper. “Is it crazy that I’ve done a complete 180 on how I feel about him in just a week?”

“You can want to be his friend and also want to kiss him, Nini.” Ashlyn rubs Nini’s shoulder comfortingly. “And no, it’s not crazy. You spent a lot of time together this week, and you’ve got an intense history. You’re both young, good-looking, single, and you understand each other in ways that probably aren’t immediate to other people. It’s not completely out of the blue for there to be an attraction between you. As for whether you just want to hook up or if you actually want to be more than his friend… well, only time will tell.”

Nini makes a face. “Ugh. Can time hurry up, then? I just want to know already.”

The only thing Ashlyn can do in response to that is laugh.

* * *

At Ricky’s apartment across town, Big Red’s FaceTime call comes in right on time. Ever since Ricky had moved to Chicago in high school, he and his best friend had maintained a tradition of nightly FaceTime calls. Later, when Ricky had left for Europe, those calls had been vital to keep him tethered to his friend group back home, who would pop in on the calls from time to time. Nini would even show up sometimes, and they would toss insults back and forth for a couple minutes before someone pulled her away.

Big Red’s face appears on the screen, too close as usual, but his familiar smile makes up for it. “Ricky, my dude! How’s it going?”

“Nothing much, dude. Just chilling at my place, for the first time in a week.” Ricky laughs a little hysterically as he considers the events of the last week. So much had happened in such a short span of time, and the implications of the week are just starting to dawn on him.

“Whoah, you okay?” Big Red peers even closer to the camera on his end of the call, his eyebrows furrowing in concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine. More than fine, really. I think Nini and I are in a good place now, whatever that means.”

“What _does_ that mean?”

“Beats me. I mean, you know she went on that blind date right?”

Big Red just barely refrains from rolling his eyes. Everyone knows about the blind date; Seb had told Carlos, who then told everyone else. “The one where you went with her? And got jealous?”

“I wouldn’t call it _jealousy_ — okay, yeah, no, I was jealous.” Ricky ruffles his hair sheepishly. “No way to deny that, I guess. Anyways, it— well, more like Seb— got me thinking… do I like Nini?”

“I can’t tell you how or what to feel, Ricky, but whatever’s going on between you two certainly doesn’t look purely friendly.”

Ricky scrunches his nose. “Well, what am I supposed to do, then? I don’t really have an excuse to be around her anymore, other than for training, since our bet is over and we’re free from the rope…”

Big Red does roll his eyes this time. “Hets are so exhausting,” he mutters, ignoring Ricky’s indignant squawk about being bi. Then, “You realize you guys are friends, right? At the very least, you share the same group of best friends. It’s not hard to set up hangouts, Ricky.”

Ricky brightens at that. “Should I invite Nini to come hang out with us sometime, then?”

“Sure! I adore Nini, you know that. But I’m saying you can also hang out, just the two of you, without a chaperone. Now that you aren’t out for each other’s blood, I think we all feel pretty comfortable letting you two loose unsupervised.”

Ricky flaps a hand at him. “Hey, we weren’t that bad! ... Well, we weren’t that good, either. Anyways. You really think I should just go hang out with her randomly? Don’t you think she’ll be weirded out by that?”

“Not based on the way she looks at you, no.”

Ricky nods firmly, his resolve strengthened. “Okay, sick! I’m going to friend the heck out of her. And then woo her. Or maybe both at the same time? Can I do that?”

“Ricky, I’m hanging up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big red and ashlyn do be my emotional support dumbass (big red) and emotional support emotional support (ashlyn), respectively. 
> 
> anyways! drop a kudos or a comment!! they really do keep me going and feed my constant need for attention jfnsjnfdj
> 
> also i have three other oneshots up if u wanna check those out! and keep an eye out for at least two more oneshots and a 3-part story that i have planned coming... eventually... lmao
> 
> but yes i can tell u this much: one of the oneshots will be inspired from a song, and it's (finally) going to be set in-universe in the lost summer when nini and ricky were broken up, another oneshot will be a figure skater/hockey player college au, and the 3-part story is going to be a socialite-ish au.... i kinda also want to something more nini-centric? idk we'll see
> 
> also okay when i wrote fic a couple years ago a lot of ppl used this thing called ask.fm? it's basically like a website where u can ask me questions anonymously (or not) and we can kind of chat that way; idk if ppl would be into that or if that just sounds weird and not enticing at all but yeah idk i feel like there's less of a community on ao3 than there is in other forums for fans so i just wanted to be able to connect to yall more but lmk if that sounds like something you'd want me to do!
> 
> next chapter (supposedly): just fluff as nini and ricky develop their romance tbh


	6. alley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *the alley is the portion of the tennis court that is composed of the narrow strips down the side of the court; that portion of the court is in play for doubles, but it's out of bounds for singles. 
> 
> hello. yes it's been two months..... and four oneshots later.... honestly i'd forgotten about this story and the stuff i was going to do with it but the cobwebs are being dusted away and it's kinda coming back to me so...... :D

“And it’s been a week, Carlos, an entire week, and he’s just gone… radio silent! What the hell is up with that, huh?”

“Nini—” Carlos pants out, raising his voice to be heard above the pulsing music in the spin studio, “— maybe this conversation could wait until after the spin class?”

Carlos can’t see her clearly in the multicolored, low-to-the-ground lighting of the spin studio, but she blinks several times, looking down at her legs, which are still pedaling furiously along with the rest of the class. She’d practically forgotten where they were and what they were doing, caught up in her half-confused, half-indignant, fully ridiculous rant about Ricky. It’s been a week since she’s heard from him, and it’s not like it matters or she cares, but— well, it’s Ricky, so of course it matters, and of course she cares.

“I just… I thought there was something between us, you know?” Nini shakes her head, murmuring a quick _thank you_ to the spin instructor as the class ends and she exits with Carlos.

Carlos resists the urge to groan and takes a deep breath in through his nose instead. “You wanna hear something funny? EJ always said things would get boring around here if you and Ricky ever made peace with each other. Boy, was he wrong. You guys are still as ridiculous as ever.”

Nini tosses him a baleful look. “Thanks. Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t have a delicate touch.”

“Don’t I know it!” Carlos winks at her, and she has to laugh. Even if he’s not being particularly helpful, he’s still bringing much needed levity to her situation, which even she can admit is a little nonsensical. The same logic that has her upset about not receiving any communication from Ricky in a week tells her that she could just reach out herself. What if Ricky’s been experiencing the same exact fluttering uncertainty and confusing giddiness this whole week? What if he’s been waiting for her to text or call or FaceTime or DM or anything, really, and what if he’s almost done it a hundred times only to pull back at the last moment, just like her? They’re hardly children anymore, and they should be past this spineless will-they-won’t-they stage, but everything feels new and delicate between her and Ricky. She feels like she has to hold her breath or it’ll all fall apart, like one overblown exhale could send them careening back into stony silence interspersed with barbed banter.

“... anyways, you’ll have to see each other tomorrow at the gala, remember?” Carlos nudges her out of her thoughts.

Nini grimaces at the reminder. They’re all attending a charity gala the next day, and people from all over the industry will be there. It’s always for a good cause, but Nini can’t help but wonder why they don’t just donate the money quietly without throwing a whole gala for it. She supposes people like to show off their philanthropic nature more than simply _being_ philanthropic, but at the end of the day, money donated is money donated. Nini usually doesn’t mind the galas; she likes getting dressed up, and they all like to see their friends from distant corners of the industry and indulge in some mindless gossip, but it’s been a rough week of training for her, and she feels like she needs to get in more practice to move past this block. She knows she’s in top physical shape, but her mind has been dull and heavy lately, lagging behind every drill and exercise with nothing to show for it. She can go through the motions just fine, but she wonders when tennis started to feel like more of a duty than a passion. In the back of her mind, she notes that she hadn’t felt that way when she played with Ricky, but she reasons that it was probably just fun because it was something new. A change of scenery, a change of pace. Nothing more.

“Neens?” Carlos waves his hand in front of her face. “You okay?”

She shakes her head and laughs, brushing him off. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve just been kind of out of it lately…”

“I’ve noticed. We all have. You sure you’re okay? You know you can talk to us about anything, right?” Carlos looks at her kindly, all remnants of teasing gone from his demeanor.

Nini squeezes his shoulder and smiles. “I know. It’s just… whatever’s been going on with me is something that I don’t think I even know how to verbalize yet. I’m still trying to figure it out, but I’ve got it, Carlos.”

“Of course you do. But I got you too, Neens.”

Nini’s chest fills with gentle warmth. Her friends are the best in the world, and she’s forever grateful that she has these people in her court. Romance is a funny, tender thing, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want it to bloom between her and Ricky, but before they shared heated moments in her kitchen, they shared heated words within their friend group. Friendship— real, solid, tried and tested and true— is a safety net when everything else falls away, and she’s always had that. Even Ricky— she’s always had Ricky in some way. Now, she wants him in a different way, and this desire is small and scary and still so shaky, but it’s the only thing she can think of, sometimes. Maybe he’s just a crush, like Gina had said— fascinating and attention-grabbing, an itch to scratch, a way to pass the time, intriguing simply because he’d been _there_ for so many years and now he’s _here_ , a tangible possibility on the periphery of her orbit. But she knows he’s much closer now than just the periphery of her orbit, and he’s so much more than intriguing or attention-grabbing or a way to pass the time because he’s _amazing_ , and annoying, and arrogant; all that, and more.

He’s Ricky, and she’s always had Ricky in some way, but now she wants more. She wants all of him, in every way, and it’s the most frightening and exhilarating thing ever, but still she wants, she wants, she wants. 

* * *

“Bow tie or regular tie?” EJ holds up the two options. 

Ricky smiles winningly at him. “Neither?”

EJ rolls his eyes. “Wrong answer. It’s a black tie gala, Ricky, you know this. Bow tie is the only way to go, buddy.”

A memory flashes through Ricky’s mind: sophomore year of high school, standing in the foyer of the Caswell’s house and fidgeting with the cuffs of his shirt before the homecoming dance. His parents’ pending divorce hanging heavy over his head, but Nini’s hands at his shirt collar clearing away the fog for a couple minutes as she fixed his tie and insulted his clumsy fingers. In the present moment, he wonders if he can get Nini to fix his bow tie tonight if he does it wrong. He wonders if she even knows how to fix a bow tie, and if her fingers would be as nimble as they were all those years ago, hovering over his chest and emanating warmth.

“Aw dude, seriously?” EJ groans.

Ricky’s eyes refocus and he turns his attention back to his friend. “What?”

EJ grabs a pair of socks from Ricky’s dresser and throws it at his head. “Thinking about Nini? Again?”

Ricky dodges the socks and splutters, “What? No! No, I… well, yeah. How’d you know?”

“Nini goggles.”

“Huh?”

“You had your Nini goggles on! Seb calls them your heart eyes. Speaking of, how are things going between the two of you?”

Ricky groans and flops back down onto his bed, star-fished out in the picture of hopelessness. “Terribly. I was going to, like, woo her or something. Like, hang out with her and stuff, without the whole bet thing or the doubles training, you know? Just hang out with her, because I like hanging out with her, and I like a lot of things about her, and I think I could probably find even more things to like about her, if I could just stop freezing up every time I go to text her.” Ricky blows out a big breath. “She’s just… amazing. She’s amazing, and annoying, and arrogant, turning her cute little nose up at me all the time… and I’m just scared that if we try one romantic thing and it goes wrong, we’ll lose all the progress we’ve made as friends.”

EJ chucks another pair of socks Ricky, this time hitting him spot on. “Okay, first of all, you guys need to tell _each other_ how much you like each other, instead of telling all our friends. Second of all… I think you’ll be fine, Ricky. Seriously. You and Nini look at each other like you’ve been a long time coming. I don’t think you should hold yourself back from becoming something more with her only because you’re scared. You guys have had fights before, big fights, and you’ve been fine, right?”

“Yeah, but that was before! Before, you know…” Before ice baths and blueberry pies and broken faucets, before long looks shared over home-cooked meals and wet hair and a length of rope. 

EJ nods. “That was before, and this is after. I get it. You’re in the after now. It’s terrifying and it’s risky, but there’s no way out except forward, and I think you want to move forward, Ricky.”

“I think I do, too.” Ricky sighs. “When did you start getting smart about relationships, dude?”

“I’ve gone on a _lot_ of weird dates.”

That prompts a laugh out of Ricky. “No kidding. Hey, how was that date with the teacher, by the way? No red flags?”

EJ winces. “Funny you should ask…”

* * *

The gala is held in the ballroom of some high-end hotel; everyone and everything is glittery and pressed to perfection. Surrounded by such splendor, Ricky’s lungs still constrict at the sight of Nini. Maybe it’s his purposefully wonky bow tie blocking his flow of oxygen, or maybe it’s just the fact that he hasn’t seen her in a week, and it’s not like they’ve ever _needed_ each other like that, but he wants, he wants, he wants.

He holds his breath as she makes her way towards him. The hem of her gold dress glides along the polished floors, and her eyes are warm and smokey as they remain trained on his. Her hair is slicked back into a long ponytail, and suddenly he has an irrational thought: would she try to murder him with one of her stilettos if he accidentally messed up her hair while kissing her? Because, well, he wants to. 

She tries to greet him with a flippant, “You look like you’re about to pass out,” but her voice wavers at the end and gives her away.

“Yeah, well, you look like _that_ ,” he blurts out. “I mean, you always look like that, but now it’s different because, you know.” Now it’s different because they’re in the after, and he’s floundering and fumbling in the dark. But Nini flashes him a bright, beautiful smile, so maybe it’s all worth it.

“I know,” she says simply, and then her hands are hovering over his chest, nimble as always and emanating warmth. She _tut_ s at him and insults his clumsy fingers again as she redoes his bow tie, but instead of allowing this moment to pass by like in high school, he grabs her fingers before they slip away, and he holds on.

Hesitantly, he asks, “Can we talk somewhere?”

“You’re not going to drag me into some dark corner to make out, are you?” Nini’s tone is dry, but her fingers twitch in his grasp, and her heart picks up speed at her own audacity.

Ricky’s eyes widen and then crinkle mischievously as he smirks. “Believe me, when I’m about to drag you into a dark corner to make out, you’ll know.” And then he’s pulling her away towards some unknown destination, and she’s blinking rapidly, half impressed and half disbelieving at _his_ audacity. An uncontrollable shiver passes through her at the thought of what his words entail, and she knows he noticed it because of the dimple that shows up in his left cheek. 

They end up on a small balcony attached to one side of the ballroom, where the only light comes from the moon and the balmy breeze brings goosebumps to Nini’s skin. 

Ricky takes a deep breath before facing her. “You wanna hear something funny, and kinda stupid?” Without waiting for an answer, he plows on. “I did my bow tie wrong on purpose tonight, because I remembered when you fixed it for me in high school, and I wanted you to do it again.” He smiles helplessly at her, all boyish and bashful now. “I wanted any excuse to be near you, which is kinda stupid because we’re friends, right? And I don’t need an excuse to be near you, except I kinda feel like I do, because even though we’re friends, well—”

“You and I are not friends in the same way that we’re friends with everyone else,” she finishes for him. “I don’t make jokes about making out with everyone else,” she says bluntly. “Well, actually, sometimes I do, but it’s different with you because, you know.”

“I know,” he repeats softly. He just stares at her for a second, and then he tips his head back and laughs. “Nah, no more of this. No more beating around the bush. Nini, I like you, and I’ve felt something for you for years, even if it was frustration and competitiveness for a long time. It’s not that anymore. It’s _definitely_ not that anymore.”

“Good,” she breathes out, stepping closer to him and smoothing her fingers over the lapels of his tuxedo. “That’s good, because I like you, too, and you’ve been a pain in the ass for years, but you’ve always been _there_ , and now I want you to be _here_.”

“And where’s that?”

“Oh, you know. Here.” And then she’s kissing him, soft and chaste. It feels like a promise, like a hazy beginning, like the first days of spring when the skies pour cold rain onto warm earth; it feels like everything they’ve been wanting (and wanting, and wanting) has finally settled into place. 

* * *

“I kissed Ricky,” Nini hisses to Kourtney, Gina, and Ashlyn. They’re all gathered in the women’s bathroom, where Nini had declared an emergency.

“Good!” Gina exclaims. “That’s good, right?” 

Nini lets out a distraught sound. “I guess? I mean, it’s kind of a lot, isn’t it?”

Ashlyn places a hand on Nini’s shoulder and squeezes gently. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the French Open is in, like, a month, and then Wimbledon is a month after that, and I have to train, right? I have to kick whatever weird funk I’ve been in, and I have to keep getting better, and Ricky…”

“Ricky makes you better.” Kourtney’s smile is gentle but knowing. “I don’t mean it like he literally makes anything better, but he makes all the hard stuff easier to bear, doesn’t he?”

Nini deflates from her tense, defensive posture. “Yeah. Yeah, he does. I still don’t know why tennis has been so… hard lately, but he’s been making the fact that it’s hard— easier. We don’t even talk about it, because I haven’t really figured out how to talk about it yet, but he makes it easier just by being there, and that’s gotta be worth something, right? I think it’s gotta be worth something.”

“I think it’s worth a lot, Neens.” Ashlyn squeezes her shoulder again. 

“So are you guys, like, dating now?” Gina’s grin is gleeful. “Because if so, EJ owes me 20 bucks.”

“I don’t really know? I kissed him, and then we just kind of… smiled at each other, and then I think I blacked out between coming back into the ballroom and assembling you all here, because I was just, like, thinking of the kiss the whole time.” Nini buries her face in her hands and giggles. “It’s ridiculous. I’m being ridiculous!”

“You’re in love,” Gina returns cheekily.

“Gina! I’m not in love! I’m in _like_ , I guess, but that sounds stupid.”

Gina shrugs. “You liked the kiss, and you like the guy, so… what’s next?” 

Nini takes a breath and straightens her shoulders. “Now I’m going to ask him on a date. I kissed him first, and I’m going to ask him on a date first, too. I’ve got a winning streak to keep up, ladies.”

* * *

“Nini kissed me,” Ricky murmurs dreamily. He, EJ, Big Red, Seb, and Carlos are all gathered around the hors d'oeuvres, which are rapidly disappearing.

“All thanks to me,” EJ says proudly.

“You? I was the one who convinced Ricky to woo her!” Big Red exclaims.

“I was the one who told him to move forward!” EJ returns.

“I was the one who made him realize he even liked her in the first place,” Seb intones loftily.

Ricky cuts in indignantly with, “Excuse me, I was doing fine on my own!”

“No, you weren’t,” Carlos says dryly. He pops a mini crescent roll into his mouth and grins cheekily at Ricky. “But you’re doing fine now, Ricky. What are you guys doing for the first date?”

Ricky pales. “I never asked her on a date?” 

The chorus of groans and complaints is resounding.

* * *

When Nini’s contact pops up on Ricky’s phone later that night, he almost drops the phone into his sink. 

“Hi!” Nini chirps, too bright and too loud for this time of night. She feels silly and sappy, like she’s in a Hallmark movie and she has cartoon birds flying around her head. Nini knows she’s allowed to have more than just tennis in her life, but Ricky feels like _infinitely_ more, and she does not want to screw this up. 

“Hey!” he returns, equally as bright and loud. He feels like he’s in high school all over again, except high school had mostly consisted of training, antagonizing Nini, his parents getting divorced, and then more training. But this awkward nervousness, where he’s unsure of what to say to Nini because his heart’s beating out of his chest and his mind is completely devoid of sensible thought— that’s high school, for sure. 

“Do you want to go on a date? With me? Next week?” Nini throws out the words quickly, like she’s been holding them in for a long time. Maybe she has, ever since he promised that he would make a first date spectacular. Maybe it was even before that, back when she first saw him land in Florida— the prodigal son, returned from his sojourn abroad. Ricky has been a constant fixture in her life since she was a child, even in the years they spent apart when he was in Chicago and then Europe. Even then, he was always somewhere in the back of her mind, teasing her over phone calls with Big Red or FaceTiming into holiday gift exchanges. And now? Now he’s on her mind, all the time.

“Yes! I would love to go on a date! With you! Next week is great!” Ricky exclaims. He’s pacing in circles around his kitchen.

“Okay! Great! See you then!” 

“Okay! Bye!” The call ends, and Ricky drags a hand over his face and groans. That was awkward— notably, excruciatingly, needlessly awkward. Needless, because he and Nini had always had an easy rhythm going, whether it was in snarky comments or casually soul-bearing conversations. It’s never been like this— tense, nerve-wracking, and _awkward_. Maybe it’s first date jitters, or just the normal discombobulation that comes with a change in any relationship, but he doesn’t want it to be like this. Nini’s done most of the work so far— she kissed him first, and she asked him out first. He figures it’s time to pull his weight and undo this strange knot between them, because it’s making them act like strangers, like they don’t have years of history between them. 

He calls her back, his heart no longer racing this time. “Hey, Neens? We’re making some kind of start together right now, yeah?”

Nini’s voice is soft and finally back to its normal pitch. “Yeah, Ricky, I think we are.”

“Then I want to do it right. And that means I want our start to include everything we’ve shared before. We can still, like, make fun of each other and stuff, you know? We can talk to each other the same way we did before, except now I’m probably going to flirt more, and I kinda hope you’ll flirt back.”

Nini laughs. “Alright, Ricky. That sounds good to me.”

“Yay,” Ricky breathes out. 

“Yay,” Nini repeats, and he can hear her smile through the phone.

“Hey, you wanna meet me at Home Depot tomorrow?” 

“It’s my day off, so I guess sure? Why?”

“I’m starting to make over the rest of my place to fit what I want in a home, and I’m not really good with colors, so I could use your help, if that’s cool with you.”

“What, just because I’m a woman, so I’m automatically good with colors?” Nini drawls, teasing and spirited again.

“No, because I just like spending time with you, Nini,” Ricky responds sincerely. Then, more cheekily: “And because you’re a woman, so you’re automatically good with colors, of _course_! How could I forget? It’s your best quality.”

“Oh yeah? I would say your best quality is your ass, but it’s kinda flat.”

“ _Hey_!”

Warm, easy laughter fills his kitchen for the next fifteen minutes as they talk about everything and nothing. For the first time since they were free of that rope, he feels tethered again. It’s not restricting or frustrating; instead, it just feels comforting. It feels like Nini’s in his court— for good, this time.

* * *

“Hey, this reminds me— didn’t you want to learn how to drive?” Ricky turns his head to Nini, who’s inspecting a wall of paint swatches. They’re at Home Depot, and she’s wearing worn-in overalls and a long braid, and he’s hopelessly charmed, so he’s taking every chance he gets to sneak looks at her.

Nini rolls her eyes. “I never said I didn’t know how to drive, Ricky. I have a license, technically.”

“Technically?” He picks up a few yellow paint swatches and shows them to her, a question written in his eyebrows.

She wrinkles her nose and taps the leftmost paint swatch. “Technically, yeah. I got a license when I was 16, and then I just… never used it. It’s supposed to be like riding a bike, though, right? I can just get back into the driver’s seat. Hey, will you let me drive your car?”

“Not sure if it’s exactly like riding a bike, but yeah, okay, you can drive my car. Maybe just in the parking lot at first, though.”

“What, you don’t think I can drive?”

“I think it’s been, like, seven years since you’ve driven, so maybe start in the parking lot?” He smiles winningly at her, and she can’t help herself— she pokes the dimple in his cheek. He just smiles bigger. Yeah, so he kind of adores her, whatever.

“You’re not slick, you know,” she says, retracting her finger and smiling despite herself. “I know you liked the yellow paint in my guest bedroom.”

He shrugs sheepishly. “Yeah, I think it would look nice for the backsplash in my kitchen, if I can find something in the same color range.”

She raises an eyebrow but leads him to the kitchen tiles anyway. “Copying me, Ricky?”

“You have good taste, what can I say? In colors, _and_ in men!”

“Knock the smirk off your face, Ricky.”

Ricky’s smirk slides into a grin. “Oh, c’mon, you aren’t even looking at me.”

“I can just feel it. Here, this one.” Nini points to a particular tile. “I like this one.”

“Hey, I like that one, too. Let’s get it!” While Ricky bustles around getting the tile ordered, Nini stays silent, lost in thought.

“Can I ask you something?” she asks finally, when they’re waiting in the checkout line. 

“Sure, what’s up?” He turns to her with an easy smile.

Nini props her elbow up on the handle of their shopping cart and rests her head in her hand. “Why do you play tennis?”

“Because it’s fun,” he answers immediately. “It’s fun, and I’m good at it. Really good at it, in fact.”

“That’s it?” Her eyebrows furrow and stay furrowed.

“Pretty much, yeah. Why?”

Nini sighs. “In the simplest words? Tennis just hasn’t been much fun for me lately.”

“What about you, Neens? Why do you play tennis?”

“To be the best,” she answers simply. “And other than that… well, I’ve kind of forgotten. There must have been some point in time— maybe when I was a kid— when I wasn’t the best, right? There must have been some other reason for me to play?”

Ricky chuckles. “Yes, Nini, as hard as it may be for you to believe, there was a time when you weren’t the best.”

She shoves him playfully. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do. Every athlete goes through moments of burnout, right? Every person does, in fact. You wanna get in a court some time with me and just… let it all out?”

Nini looks thoughtful. “Some time, maybe.” She nudges him forward. “We’re holding up the line, Ricky.”

Ricky just hooks an arm around her shoulders and squeezes once. “You’re worth the wait, Neens.” 

Nini bursts out laughing and pushes their cart forward. Just like that, the weight on her shoulders lessens, or maybe her shoulders grow stronger; whatever. The simple truth of the matter is that one silly, off-the-cuff remark from Ricky is enough to make everything easier, so yeah, she kind of adores him.

* * *

“So… you guys went on a date?” Kourtney looks and sounds confused over FaceTime. 

“No! No, the date is next Friday. Today was just… fun,” Nini sighs dreamily.

“So it was a pre-date… date?”

“I guess?”

Kourtney snorts. “Carlos is right, you guys are still as ridiculous as ever.”

Nini shrugs helplessly. “I know we’re doing everything out of order, and we’re supposed to go on a first date before we pick out kitchen tiles together, but I don’t know, it doesn’t feel wrong or scary with him, not even a little bit. It just feels natural.”

Kourtney scoffs. “Who cares about the right order? I hate to say that EJ is right, but he’s right— you guys have been a long time coming.”

“He said that?”

“He’s _been_ saying it.”

“Who would’ve thought EJ Caswell would’ve read Ricky and I so thoroughly?”

“We _all_ read you two, don’t flatter EJ like that. Besides, I heard his most recent date— the teacher, remember?— ended up going south because it turned out that the teacher was, like, 20 years older than he thought she was.”

Nini chortles. “Oh my god, we need to start screening EJ’s dates for him. Hey, speaking of dates, how’s it going with the cute girl at the coffee shop?”

“I stopped giving her long orders just so I could talk to her longer, so that’s good, I guess?”

“Oh c’mon, Kourtney, you can do better than that!”

“I know, right? There’s just something about her that makes me all jittery and _stupid_ , you know?”

“Believe me, I know.”

* * *

The next Friday, Nini full-on _skips_ to Ricky’s car. It’s been an effervescent week, filled with texts and FaceTimes between her and Ricky, even as their training ramps up for the upcoming French Open. He’ll call when she’s trying to make a new dish for dinner and he’s sitting in a bathtub full of ice after a particularly grueling day of training, or she’ll vent out her frustrations about a practice match with a glass of sangria while he grouts the tile backsplash in his kitchen. It feels like they’ve been together for years instead of a week, wrapped in the comfort of years of history and blanketed by the reassurance that this is a start— a good one, a real one, a permanent one.

Ricky’s leaning against his car, shading his eyes from the sun and squinting to look at her. “You look like you’re in a good mood!” he exclaims, holding his hands out for her. 

She reaches him and takes his hands, swinging their joined hands between them. “You gonna make sure it stays that way?” Beaming, she leans in to press a kiss to his cheek.

“Of course, your highness. By the way, you are so pretty, did ya know that?” He reaches up and brushes his thumb over her cheekbone, smiling in response to her smile and delighting in the way pink blooms under his touch.

“Yeah, but tell me again, just in case I forget,” she quips.

“You’re very pretty,” he repeats immediately. He’s sure he’s got on his Nini goggles or his heart eyes or whatever his friends call it, but what does he care? It’s a beautiful day, and he’s holding hands with a beautiful girl. It’s simple but so sweet.

“So… can I drive us there?” Nini flutters her eyelashes at Ricky, overexaggerating the motion and making him laugh. This is her favorite laugh of his— his head tipped back slightly, his eyes crinkled with mirth, and his laughter bright and loud.

“The mountain’s about twenty minutes away on a road that’s pretty much empty most of the time, so yeah, why not. A highway with basically no traffic is an upgrade from the parking lot, but I think you can handle it.” He piles on the arrogance just to see _her_ laugh.

“Oh good, because I was going to be so devastated if you didn’t think I could handle it.” She raps her knuckles against the side of his car. “C’mon, Ricky, let me take you out for a drive.”

Ricky chuckles and opens the door for her. They’re on their way to a nearby mountain for a hike; it’s the kind of thing that two competitive athletes would enjoy as a first date, and it doesn’t hurt that there’s a beautiful view and a sunset waiting for them. 

They’re debating the pros and cons of kale in smoothies when everything goes a little bit sideways. Off-road, even.

“I’m just saying, you can barely even taste it!” Nini insists. Then, she’s going over a ditch in the road, and she loses control for a brief second, and the next thing she knows, they’re stuck in another ditch on the side of the highway. 

Ricky groans, jolted by the bumpy descent into the ditch but otherwise unharmed. “You okay, Nini?”

He looks over to see her still clutching the steering wheel, a mixture of ashen and humiliated. “Oh my god. Oh my god! We’re stuck in a ditch, aren’t we?” she exclaims, releasing the steering wheel to drag her hands over her face.

“Well… technically, yeah.” Ricky laughs under his breath.

Nini whips around to glare at him. “Ricky, so help me god, if you say one word about me _technically_ having a license—”

“No no no! That's not what I was going to say!” He waves his hands in front of her frantically, but he still can’t stop himself from laughing. 

“Ricky!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just that— c’mon, Nini, you gotta admit that this is a little bit funny,” Ricky splutters. 

Nini’s voice rises in fury. “ _Funny_? We’re stuck in a ditch on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere, because you wanted to go to a mountain that only has one shittily maintained road leading to it! I could’ve almost killed us!” 

Ricky swallows a laugh and nods seriously. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, okay? You’re right, this was a little scary, but we’re fine, right? All’s well that ends well?” He gives her a cajoling smile.

She deflates and mutters, “Yeah, I guess.” There’s a long pause, and then she lets out a little giggle. “Maybe it was a little bit funny.”

Ricky lets himself keep laughing for a little while longer, and then he settles down and levels Nini with a reassuring look. “Hey, we’re gonna be fine, okay? You’re right, that road was really badly maintained, and we can just call a tow truck to come out and get us, alright?” At her nod, he dials Triple A. “They’re saying it’ll be a couple hours, Neens.”

Nini sighs and shrugs. “Makes sense. We’re kinda in the middle of nowhere.”

“Well, while we’re here…” Ricky undoes his seatbelt and clambers into the backseat, motioning for her to follow. Confused but with obviously nothing else to do, she follows. He folds himself in half over the backseat, scrabbling around in the trunk to find something. 

“Ricky? What are you doing?” Nini asks, amusement clear in her voice.

“Just getting something— ah, here!” Ricky pulls out a plastic container triumphantly. He takes off the lid and shyly offers a brownie to her. “I was going to wait until we got to the top of the mountain so we could eat these, but we’re here now, so…”

“Brownies for dinner? What would your nutritionist think?” Nini teases, but her heart tugs at the clearly lumpy brownies— homemade, just for her, with a peanut butter swirl.

He grins goofily at her. “I’ll make up for it with a kale smoothie, I dunno.”

“Oh wait, I have something for us, too!” Nini exclaims. Quickly, she climbs back into the driver’s seat and retrieves an insulated lunch bag from under the seat.

Ricky peers over her shoulder. “Hey, is that the same one you had in kindergarten?”

Nini pushes him back and climbs back herself. “Shut up, it was the only lunch bag I could find at home. I made egg salad sandwiches for us!”

“You are the perfect woman,” he declares.

She smiles smugly and takes a bite out of a brownie. “Yeah, I know. These brownies are kind of heavenly, too.”

They eat their sandwiches and brownies in the backseat of his car, stuck in a ditch on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere. It’s simple but so sweet. It’s kind of perfect, actually, which is what Nini says to assure Ricky when he admits that he had planned for them to watch the sunset and maybe make out underneath the stars, and then head back into civilization to grab a late-night dinner at a 24/7 diner.

Ricky sighs. “So much for a spectacular first date, huh?”

Nini shrugs and pushes him back against the seat. She slides into his lap, inwardly laughing a little at the way his mouth drops open and his eyes widen in shock. “Well, it’ll definitely be memorable. Anyways, there are always other sunsets. And if the diner is really open 24/7, we can always go there after we get towed,” she reasons. “As for making out… we’ll see what we can do about that.”

Ricky grins, looping his arms behind her back and pulling her closer to him. “If you insist.” And then he’s kissing her, and she learns that the simple, chaste kiss they shared a week ago is just the tip of the iceberg. Ricky kisses her with so much adoration and desire all at once; she thinks she might just die from how sweet and how good it is. She opens her mouth to his, and her stomach flip-flops at the pleased sound he lets out. When his lips begin a teasing, meandering path from her mouth to her cheek to her jaw to her neck, she finds her hands in his hair, gently threading through the curls and smoothing away the tangles the way she knows he likes. 

“By the way, did I tell you that you’re really pretty?” he asks between kisses, burying a grin in the hollow of her throat when she swats at his shoulder for the interruption. “And funny, and smart, and an absolutely singular tennis player, and a great baker, and an okay cook, and a less-than-okay driver—”

She pulls him up, cups his face in her hands, and kisses him harder, just to shut him up.

It’s spectacular.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright!! promise it won't take me two months until the next update now that i'm done with school lmao
> 
> also keep an eye out for the 21 series from cath (hanbrough) lottie (lottielotsof) katie (lovealwayskatie) and i!! it's a set of unrelated oneshots all inspired by the song 21 by gracie abrams— we kind of all started writing around the song separately and then we were like omg our minds???? let's all do it. cath already has hers up and it's exquisite so please go check that out!!
> 
> so yes! there's that coming soon (hopefully) and always more oneshots bc rini has me in a chokehold so yeah. also read my other oneshots and give me attention :D
> 
> (also i'm on twitter @staccatohearts!)


	7. double fault

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *a double fault is when the person serving makes two consecutive faults (e.g., a serve that lands outside the service box or doesn't go over the net for whatever reason) while serving, which automatically gives the opponent a point. 
> 
> hey remember when i said it wouldn't take me two months to update? well.... technically it didn't........ but it's definitely been a while lmao nice to see u all again :DD in retrospect the last chapter was definitely off-beat in terms of what i usually like to do with my writing, but i guess that's just what happens when you don't touch something for two months..... no comment anyways
> 
> most importantly: this is dedicated to chlottie bc it was their week!! so true chloenation so true lottienation
> 
> some brief notes:  
> -the grand slam tennis tournaments like the french open and wimbledon use a single-elimination format, where you are eliminated from the entire tournament after a single loss  
> -an unforced error is when you lose a point/your opponent gains a point because of an error you made, not necessarily because of a great shot your opponent made. for example, a double fault would be an unforced error, because it's self-induced. other examples of unforced errors include hitting the ball into the net or out of bounds.  
> -enjoy :D

There’s an art to fitting another person into the contours of your life. 

Nini wouldn’t consider herself a solitary person by any means— her days are filled with trainers, coaches, physical therapists, nutritionists, managers, publicists, drivers, and chefs (less of the last two, as of recently). Her friends fill the spaces in between, like the flowers that pop up between cobblestones. Romance— _love—_ hasn’t really been a part of her landscape, but there Ricky is anyway, like the most stubborn of dandelions that squeeze their way through the cracks in the pavement, hardy and bright. 

In any case, there’s an art to fitting another person into the contours of your life. It’s not as mechanistic or intentional of a pursuit as Nini normally likes— she can’t tick off a list of steps that concludes in Ricky being established in her life, after which she can just leave well enough alone and move on to the next task. On the contrary, Nini finds herself doing things with Ricky in the back of her mind, with no recollection of ever intending to do so. The month leading up to the French Open unfolds as a pleasant surprise; around every corner, there’s a part of Ricky infused into her life, and she didn’t even have to try to put him there. He’s there, and it’s as easy as that. Nini likes the bite of hard work, likes the sweat and the sore muscles that come from training, likes the crossing off of to-do lists, but she’s learning that she likes _this_ , too. 

* * *

_This_ is the way he meets her in the mornings before they head off to their separate training sessions, and he coaxes her into taking a sip of whatever new coffee he’s convinced that she’ll love. The first time, she refuses politely and thinks that’ll be it, but she should’ve known better. Ricky gives a noncommittal hum at her refusal, just swinging their joined hands between them as they approach the doors of the training complex where they have to part ways. 

“You want pad thai for dinner later?” he asks casually, swiveling on his heel to face her.

“Mmm, sounds good.” Nini’s mind is busy running through her schedule for the day; it’s jam-packed, and pad thai at the end of it sounds heavenly.

“Okay, I’ll see you then.” Ricky takes a large gulp of his coffee, and then he clears his throat. “Hey, Neens?” He pouts at her, a silly request written in the curve of his mouth.

Nini rolls her eyes for the hell of it, but she wants a kiss just as badly as he does, so she surges forward and presses her lips to his eagerly. Ricky abandons all semblance of propriety and drops his tennis bag to the ground, knocking hers off of her shoulder as well and grinning when she giggles. Now free of any constraints, his hands go around her waist, splayed out and heated; pinky finger to hip bone and thumb to rib cage. Her hands drag up his sides and across his shoulders, prompting a shudder from him and a breathy laugh from her. He’s quick to capture her mouth again, and she knows she’s supposed to be getting ready for her first training session of the day, but Ricky tastes like coffee, and his pinky fingers hook under the hem of her shirt every so often to elicit goosebumps across her skin.

“We should really go,” Nini gasps out. They’re situated at the entrance of the training complex, shadowed by the overhang of the doorway, but anyone could come by at any moment. It’s entirely inappropriate and completely unprofessional, but still— Ricky tastes like coffee, and… _wait a second_.

“You’re just making out with me because of the coffee thing, aren’t you?” she accuses, drawing back to poke him in the chest. 

Ricky smirks, unashamed at getting caught. “Well? If you’d just tried the coffee like I’d asked, I wouldn’t have had to make out with you. I mean, I still would’ve _wanted_ to…” 

She bites her lip to stop the smile that’s threatening to spread, but all that accomplishes is another five minutes of kissing before he finally hugs her close and mockingly scolds her for making them both late.

The next time he holds out his coffee cup to her with that familiar coaxing grin, she accepts without comment and only wrinkles her nose a little. He kisses her nose, then her mouth, and then they’ve lost another five minutes to their own little world before she takes his coffee cup and presses it against his mouth, forcing that distraction away.

It’s the thrill of infatuation, she tells herself, that’s all. And while the need to kiss him— urgently, immediately, and all the time— tempers itself into something more patient and tender by far, she still tries a sip of his coffee every morning, wrinkles her nose, and earns a kiss in return.

* * *

_This_ is the way Ricky knows her favorite drink is peach moscato, and he texts her three days in advance of National Moscato Day to tell her that it’s coming up. She tells him that it’s a made up holiday, and he blithely responds that all holidays are made up. He invites all their friends over to his newly renovated backyard for the grand holiday, and she declares that since they’re celebrating the holiday, they might as well do gag gifts. She remembers how Ricky had spoken wistfully of the gag gift-giving holiday seasons he had missed while he was in Europe, and she knows it isn’t a big deal, but she’d like to make up for a little bit of that lost time, so she makes sure she gets his name for the gag gifts.

She comes over early on the day of the garden party; he’s barely awake when he answers the door. There’s something impossibly endearing about the way he looks right now, his eyes barely open as he leans against the doorframe and extends his arms out beseechingly for her. 

“Good morning, I think,” she laughs, stepping into his embrace and letting him mumble something nonsensical into the top of her head. 

“It’s barely eight o’clock,” he complains, shifting so that he can brush a kiss against her forehead. “Can we go back to sleep for a bit?”

Nini raises an eyebrow. “Who’s we? You and I are going to get ready for the party. Not sure who else you’re talking about it, but it’s not us.”

Ricky groans, hugging her closer and swaying them from side to side. “But there isn’t that much to do to get ready… and we have so much time… sleep?”

Nini sighs. He’s clearly deteriorating into simpler sentence structures with every yawn that escapes him, and she’s not merciless— she supposes another hour or two couldn’t hurt, and besides, he’s moved on to claiming that he’ll simply collapse if he doesn’t get to cuddle with her right this instant. 

“I don’t ask for much, Nini, just a bed and someone to warm it,” he declares dramatically, already inching them towards the direction of his bedroom.

Her snort is muffled into his chest. “Someone to warm it, huh? Just anyone?”

“Well, not just _anyone_ …” His lips curve into a smile into her shoulder. “Really, just you.”

“It would be a pity if the World No. 1 in men’s singles collapsed because he couldn’t get someone into his bed,” she jokes, unwrapping herself from his embrace and tugging him by the hand to his bedroom.

He suddenly stops moving with her, and when she looks back at him, his eyes are fully open, piercing in their sincerity. “Neens?”

“Yeah?”

“I mean it, you know. Just you.” 

She smiles softly at him, and it’s like the sun. “I know.”

* * *

_This_ is the way he didn’t get her name in the gag gift draw, but he got her one anyway, and the gift is so big that he insists that she opens the trunk of her car for it. 

“It’s a spare tire, in case you drive into any more ditches,” he explains with a cheeky smirk. 

Nini narrows her eyes at him and desperately tries to keep her lips from twitching, but he laughs first and freely, and soon she’s joining him. 

“Just for that, I’m not giving you your gift,” she threatens, but he cajoles and pleads and begs, and eventually she relents— not until she pushes him into the pool, of course, as retribution for the spare tire, and as an excuse to whistle at him when he comes out with his shirt sticking to his chest.

“You guys…” Gina shakes her head. “It’s pretty incredible how far you’ve come, and yet, I can’t say I’m all that surprised.”

Nini turns to her mid-whistle, eyes sparkling with mirth. “What do you mean?”

Gina shrugs. “It feels natural, doesn’t it? What you guys have?” At Nini’s nod, she continues. “It looks natural, too. It’s like you were two magnets repelling each other for the longest time, and then you started turning around, and now you’re attracting each other, instead.” She grimaces. “Sorry, EJ’s next date is with a theoretical physicist, and he’s been listening to all these Crash Course videos on physics.”

Nini indulges in some good-natured ribbing at EJ’s expense, but Gina’s words stay with her long after everyone goes home and it’s just Ricky and Nini loading the dishwasher in his kitchen. 

“Do you ever get a little… suspicious about us?” Nini finally ventures to ask. 

Ricky whips around to stare at her. “Suspicious? What do you mean?” He looks comically confused, with his eyes wide and the dumb apron she’d gotten him as a gag gift— _Kiss the cook!_ splashed garishly across the front— still tied around his waist.

“Something Gina said earlier about magnets… I mean, we’ve been around each other for forever, right? And it’s not like you or I have changed that much in the way we saw each other or the way we interacted, at least not until we were forced to spend more time together for doubles training. _We_ didn’t change. The circumstances did. Magnets are still magnets. It’s just that we’re facing each other on the correct side to be attracted instead of repelled, now.” 

Ricky eyes her apprehensively. “I gotta be honest with you, I didn’t follow most of that. But if you’re saying that we got lucky because our circumstances forced a change in our relationship, then sure, okay. I don’t see why that has to be suspicious. I’m pretty damn happy about it, actually.”

“I’m pretty damn happy, too! I’m just saying, doesn’t it seem a little suspicious to you that it’s just so… easy? Because it is, Ricky, it’s easy. Being with you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” she confesses. 

Ricky lets out a sound that’s half relief, half affection as he reaches out to tug her into his arms. She goes easily, allowing herself to melt against the sturdy frame he provides and inhaling the familiar scent of aftershave and laundry and everything clean and crisp in the world.

Ricky takes his time to think through his words before he speaks, a habit that isn’t all too familiar to him. But this is Nini, and she’ll always be someone to whom he wants to give his best words. “It doesn’t have to be hard for it to be good, or valuable, or real. You and me? We’re good, Neens. We’re not good because we’re easy, either. We’re good just because we _are_ , and that’s enough. And maybe things are easy now, but I’m sure we’ll have hard times, too, and I’m not scared of them.”

“You don’t seem like you’re scared of anything,” Nini retorts. There’s more bite to it than either of them expected, and for a brief, horrible moment, she’s afraid that this will be the beginning of the end. 

Ricky’s arms loosen around her in that brief, horrible moment, but then they tighten around her again, and he leans down to press his lips against her forehead. “It’s just like with the doubts, right? I have doubts and fears like anyone else, but I don’t see why I should let those stop me. I’m not going to let fears and doubts stop me from holding on to you— holding on to this.”

And it’s not as simple as that— nothing ever is— but it’s enough for now.

* * *

_This_ is the way she sees an Instagram ad for a complicated-looking coffee machine available in a charming robin egg blue, and she taps _add to cart_ before she can think about it too much. When the coffee machine shows up on her doorstep, Ricky is supposed to be over for dinner in five minutes, so she spends the next five minutes frantically trying to find a hiding place for it. She doesn’t want him to think that she got it for _him_ , because she didn’t— sure, she doesn’t _like_ coffee, but she could _learn_ to like it, so it’s really just a future investment for herself, right? But he’s at her door right as she’s dragging the large box into her living room, and she gives up on it to let him in. When his eyes catch on the box in her living room, he just raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment— it’s unlabeled, thank god. But then he waltzes her around her kitchen as they wait for the rice to cook, to the tune of some sappy playlist he’s cued up on his phone, and she thinks that it’s not so bad to do nice things for the person who makes her feel like she’s walking on clouds. After dinner, she makes him help her set up the new coffee machine in her kitchen, and when he jokingly asks if it’s for him, she answers with the simple truth: yes, she got it for him. He drops the power cord in his hand and kisses her with bursting affection, and she ends up hopping onto the countertop and swallowing his brief laments about having just wiped that down.

_This_ is the way she puts on her overalls every time they go to Home Depot, even though all they do is choose new paint swatches and critique the names printed on the sample cards. They go to IKEA afterwards and don’t leave the store with anything other than full stomachs from the food court; they spend the rest of their time there wandering through the furniture setups and coming up with stories for all the imaginary people who would live there. When he kisses her against his car in a secluded corner of the parking lot, he tells her that she tastes like Swedish meatballs and hooks his fingers under the straps of her overalls to press warm lips to her collarbone, and she laughs and laughs and laughs.

_This_ is the way she finally goes with Ashlyn to that farmers’ market she always talks about; Ashlyn shows her all the best stalls at the market and slyly reminds her that it would be a nice location for a date. The next weekend, Nini and Ricky stroll through the market with their hands linked and their eyes never far from wandering over to each other; he buys a bouquet of baby’s breath flowers and tucks a few sprigs into her hair when they sit down in the grassy picnic area to snack on fresh cheese and fruit. She offers him blueberries from the palm of her hand and kisses away the stain on his lips from eating too many, and they stay there until long after the sun sets. 

_This_ is everything good and pure and simple and light and fun. _This_ is sweet in her mouth; it sparkles in the air and tints her world in shades of pink; it heightens every lovely feeling she has and clears away the clouds in her mind. _This_ is dizzyingly wonderful and absolutely magical—

— and then they each lose in the first round of the French Open, and everything comes crashing down.

* * *

They board a plane to France a couple days before the beginning of the tournament. Nini is accustomed to making these flights alone, but she finds that she likes putting up the armrest between her and Ricky to curl into his side, likes the solid weight of his arm around her shoulders, likes the face he makes when his ears pop during takeoff. 

“Nervous?” he asks her at some point during the flight, when all the lights are dimmed and they’re getting drowsy. 

“For what?” she asks blankly. 

Ricky laughs. “The tournament, silly.” 

“Oh.” Nini ponders the question for a second. It’s achingly innocent; no one has asked her if she was nervous about anything in ages. When you're the best in your field, what’s nervousness? A mere blip on the radar of greatness, perhaps. So, she answers, “Well, no, not really.” Then, she ponders the question further. “Actually… yes. Yes, I am nervous.” It feels childish to say out loud, but there’s something about being on an airplane that seems to turn off the rest of the world. Floating high above the ground and all earthly matters, away from the judgements of people whose opinions don’t matter but who give them anyway, ensconced in this bubble that remains removed from reality so long as there is no destination reached; up here, right now, it feels safe to admit childish things, and it feels nice to be asked the things that no one else asks.

Ricky murmurs something comforting and cajoling about her unmatched prowess, leaves a kiss on her forehead, and immediately falls asleep, but Nini continues thinking about his question long after his snoring prompts her to find her headphones. 

When you’re the best in your field, when you’re unmatched and unbothered, what’s a bit of nerves? She has a winning record to maintain, sure, but at this point, she might as well be competing against herself. When you’re this great, what’s the point of any of it? These questions, deeply troubling and highly unsettling as they are, bring her immense comfort, because finally, finally, finally— she may have found a thread to pull on from the unbearable tangle her thoughts have been in lately. Her burnout— dullness in the way she moves on the court, weight on her shoulders when she bends her knees to receive a serve, fog in her mind during the moment between tossing the ball in the air and hitting it— may have a direction. It’s a huge relief to realize that her problems may be knowable and identifiable, and she has to laugh a little at the way an innocent question from Ricky prompted it all. 

When they touch down in Paris, Nini’s first order of business is to pass out in her hotel room; she’s never been able to sleep well on planes, so while she sleeps off the jetlag, Ricky takes his time meandering along the streets closest to their hotel. He comes back with a bag of fresh lemons, and she has to blink twice when she opens her hotel door to see him offering the bag to her.

“For your iced lemon water tomorrow morning,” he explains, like it’s nothing. And it’s not a great big _something_ either, because he truly hadn’t been thinking about her until he saw an open market with the last of the day’s fresh fruit on display. When he saw the lemons, it was just second nature to buy a couple for her. And that’s how it is, really— second nature, like every part of him knows a part of her in return. Nini still kisses him like it’s a great big _something_ , though, and he responds like it is, too. 

They spend the next few days wandering down narrow streets, whispering to each other in art galleries, wolfing down as many _petits fours_ as their pre-tournament regimens allow, and simply waiting. There’s nothing quite like the anticipation and attention for a Grand Slam tournament, and the French Open is a prime example of that. They— along with their fellow tennis players— are here with _purpose_ , and that purpose burns a trail through all of them, reminding them that soon they’ll step onto a court again to show the world what wonders can be wrought with a racket and a tennis ball. 

The day before the tournament is set to begin, Ricky and Nini sit down with Big Red for an exclusive interview. For obvious conflict-of-interest reasons, Big Red doesn’t make a habit of interviewing his friends too often, but this is the first interview Ricky and Nini are doing for their upcoming doubles partnership. Tennis pros don’t get the same amount or type of attention as other celebrities, but it’s also the first time Ricky and Nini plan on acknowledging their relationship, so Big Red is the only person they trust with this.

As he sits there, letting the two of them bounce off conversation topics with each other after he supplies a few leading questions, Big Red does his own reflecting on his two friends. He’s known them since they were all kids, and he still remembers when they had each discovered tennis. 

Ricky had always possessed boundless energy, and while most sports captured and redirected his energy pretty well, there had been something different with tennis. Tennis was _easy_ to Ricky, no matter how much the rest of the world turned upside down and inside out. Tennis always made sense, and it didn’t hurt that he was damn good at it, too. Big Red remembers commentating on Ricky’s first professional tennis match— somebody on social media had gotten a #princericky trend going, and the name had stuck ever since. On the court, Ricky _is_ a prince. He plays like he was born for it, like there is divine intention guiding every swing of his racket. The crowd has always gasped when Ricky steps on to the court, because he comes with a lazy grin and effortless winners. Every move has to be watched with bated breath; all of a sudden he’ll hit a daring smash, just barely within bounds, or he’ll pull out that stunning slide, letting some otherworldly physics carry him on his feet to just barely catch a ball with the rim of his racket and tip it over the net. He’s reckless and brilliant, a supernova contained in every single movement.

On the other hand, Nini hadn’t liked any sport _except_ tennis. It was the first sport for which she had shown real potential, and once she had gotten started, there was no going back. Even as a child, she had shown singular focus and burning ambition for the sport, drilling and training until every shot cut across the court with unimpeachable certainty. Big Red still has to resist the urge to roll his eyes every time someone calls her _Sparrow_ , because it’s a woefully inadequate way to articulate the way Nini plays tennis. It’s not just that she’s light and quick on her feet, because she’s so much more than that. She’s a planner before all else, and there isn’t a player in the world who can strategize like her. Moreover, she has one of the cleanest records on the professional circuit— hardly any unforced errors, ever. When her opponent scores a point, it’s because of their own skill, not because of any mistake Nini made. She doesn’t attempt risky winners or daring saves; she makes careful calculations and plots out the path of every ball before it leaves her racket. Watching her play is like watching destiny unfold; every move seems like it happens the way she wants it to and only the way she wants it to, brought into existence by the sheer force of her will. 

So, when Nini makes her first unforced error of the season the next day, Big Red rises to his feet along with half of the crowd. He holds his breath as he watches her shake it off; it’s not like she’s incapable of making unforced errors, but her opponent is a wildcard from bottom of the circuit— hungry for the chance to play against _Nini Salazar-Roberts_ and take away some invaluable lessons, sure, but hardly a contender against _Nini Salazar-Roberts_. Still, Big Red is far more perceptive than his affable nature belies, and he knows Nini’s been off her game for months now, plagued by something deep and, as of yet, unnamed. 

His heart sinks for his friend as he watches her make unforced error after unforced error, retreating deeper and deeper into the furthest recesses of her mind as she allows muscle memory to take over, going through the motions of reacting to her opponent’s moves, consistently a second too late or a step too far, even when the shots should be elementary to her. 

Nini’s stone-faced when she shakes her opponent’s hand at the end of the match, and her opponent can barely mask her own nervous admiration and shocked acceptance of Nini’s murmured congratulations. 

When Ricky finds her sitting in the bleachers of an empty city court later that day, she’s still dressed in her clothes from the match. She’s swinging her legs aimlessly, fingers tapping out a restless beat against the metal seats, an awkward staccato that only ceases when he sits down next to her and stills her fingers with his own.

“Hey,” he murmurs, turning his palm up and waiting for her to settle her fingers into the spaces between his.

“Hey,” she returns, somber and still stone-faced. They sit in silence for a while, seconds stretching into minutes as the sun sets in the hazy distance, wobbling against the smog of the city. 

“So, I guess we both have to bring a better game to Wimbledon, huh?” he quips.

She sighs and takes her hand out of his. “Yeah, no kidding.” She twists her fingers together in her lap and lets the silence carry them through another few minutes before she finally asks, “What happened to you out there today?”

Ricky shrugs. “Bad match, stupid loss. Happens to the best of us, you know?”

Nini nods minutely. It would be easy to classify this loss as a bad match for her, too, but she knows that isn’t true. “We’ll just have to train harder,” she says. It’s an empty comment, a throwaway set of words, but it spells out the beginning of the end in ways that should have been obvious from the start.

“Actually, I was just thinking that we should take a vacation sometime soon— just you and me, no tennis, and, like, we’ll close our eyes and point at a map to choose a destination or something, okay?” Ricky grins at her, just as warm and bright as ever, and she wants to punch him in the face.

“No, not okay,” she bites out, a familiar haughty tilt to her nose. But it’s not endearing or funny like it usually is, and he can already feel unease swirling in the pit of his stomach at the dark storm gathering behind her eyes.

“It’d be good for us!” he tries again, false cheeriness inflating his inflection and sending her deeper into the storm. 

“Maybe it’d be good for _you_ , but definitely not for me,” she snaps. “Not all of us can just leave whenever we feel like it, Ricky. Some of us have to stay and put in the work.”

Ricky flinches. She could’ve slapped him, and it would’ve hurt less. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, Nini?”

“It means that while you go gallivanting around Europe or some other place again, I’ll be going back to Florida so I can implement a new training schedule to make sure I don’t play like _shit_ ever again. It means that I’ll be working hard to maintain my World No. 1, but you might finally lose yours because you let it coast on by while you sat and watched.” The words are cruel, unnecessarily so, but there is truth behind each one, and Nini doesn’t regret them.

“Nini, don’t fucking do this,” he warns, low and dangerous. 

“Why? Afraid I’m hitting too close to home? Oh wait, I forgot, you don’t let your fears stop you. Yeah, right.” Nini snorts. “That’s pure bullshit. Maybe you just don’t care, Ricky.”

“Maybe you care too much, Nini,” Ricky retorts. “You’re so obsessed with being the best, with maintaining your title or whatever, but do you even know why you’re doing it? Do you even remember why you started in the first place?”

“I told you, I want to make history! I want to change the game! And you’re just like my moms, you know? You want me to take time off, go away some place, be content with what I have instead of trying so hard and reaching so high. You don’t think I can do it, either, do you?” Her words end on a whisper.

Ricky quiets down as well. “Not like this, no. Not if you keep killing yourself over a sport you love so blindly, a sport that can't love you back. Not if the only reason for all this is because you want to be the best, or keep a title, or make history, or change the game, because those are all external things, Nini. Do you remember why _you_ started in the first place? You, just you, before you knew anything like titles even existed.”

Nini rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Ricky. Just leave. I know you’ve been waiting to, I’m not stupid. It’s been months since you came back from Europe, and everything is still packed at your place, ready to go at a moment’s notice. All the renovations projects at your place? Half-done, unfinished, abandoned. We go to Home Depot and IKEA and we don’t buy anything, because it’s all just temporary, isn’t it? Tennis, Florida, me— we’re all just fleeting past times, until you get bored or scared or things get too hard, and you leave again.”

“You want me to stay? Stay for what? For you? You only like me because I’m the best, too, Nini,” he sneers. “Tell me, if I wasn’t the World No. 1, would you even glance my way?” On some level, Ricky knows it’s an unfair question. Nini isn’t an elitist in that way; she expects crushing greatness from herself, but she’s far kinder to the people she cares about. But they’re both half-panting with anger, flushed with the adrenaline of aggression, and he can’t stop the stinging words from leaving his mouth. “Seriously, would you? You never gave me the time of day when we were kids, you know. And it always killed me, because I thought that every new outrageous thing I did or record I broke would be the tipping point, and you’d finally look at me, look at me for _real_ , like I was someone worth looking at. It only happened when I got really good at tennis, though. So I’ll ask you again: what are you asking me to stay for? You can find yourself the next World No. 1 when I quit this damn sport.” 

Ricky leaves first, like he always does. The metal gate to the court clangs loudly as it shuts behind him, and the sound reverberates throughout the court with ringing finality. Nini’s fingers start tapping against the bleachers again. Soon, the sound of her fingers overpowers any lingering echoes from the metal gate, and when they fly back separately a few days later, it's the only sound that she hears, even when her ears pop and she thinks of the silly face Ricky makes whenever that happens. 

* * *

There’s an art to fitting another person into the contours of your life. Nini hadn’t been able to manage it, but it had happened anyways, sneaking up on her like nothing but the most pleasant of surprises, granting her joy when she least expected it and peace when she most needed it.

There’s no art to stitching up the mess when someone rips apart the contours of your life, though. There’s no check list for it, either. There’s a robin egg blue coffee machine in her kitchen and a vase of dying baby’s breath flowers, and that’s it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see u next time!! and when will that be? your guess is as good as mine :D
> 
> p.s. please check out ataharcot, lottielotsof, hanbrough, lovealwayskatie, vellichore, strictlysaccharine, and ebi_pers on here :DD they've all written beautiful things in this tag (and others!) so go read their stuff while doubles or nothing retreats for another month lmao


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